The little noises the hotel made at night were practically a symphony when they got into full swing. The settling of eves, the squeaking of pipes, a window occasionally rattling in the wind, the radiator knocking. Wesley found it comforting. The empty hotel breathed, moved, lived, whereas his apartment was unfortunately gray, everlastingly stagnant, and deafeningly silent. And unlike his apartment, the hotel held the promise of company. Cordelia rarely reappeared after she had left for the night, but there was always the possibility that Gunn would burst in with some news of danger. Angel had yet to return from his rendezvous with an informant.

Wesley slid his glasses off and set them on his open book, rubbing the bridge of his nose where the pads pinched too tight. He had been meaning to get them fixed, but something huge and hellish always seemed to crop up before he got around to mundane details like glasses.

He went out to the lobby, taking Gallerton's Demonology, and his ill-fitting glasses out with him. He threw the book on the couch, switched on the light on the night stand, then shuffled over the desk and pulled open the tea tin. Orange spice all around. He would have to pick up some real tea on his way back into the office tomorrow. He put the water on anyway, picked a mug out of the stack of clean ones and began tipping sugar from the sugar bowl into it.

The wind played a tune across the windows as he sunk onto the couch with his tea, blowing on it and stirring in the sugar. The radiator started banging away again. Wesley always pretended that the noise was footsteps from people upstairs. It made him feel less alone. He wished his apartment had a radiator. Or someone else's footsteps.

He picked Gallerton's heavy and somewhat over-imagined and under-informed book back up and flipped a few pages absently. Maybe he would just wait for Angel to come back. That was reasonable. He was the boss now after all, he could make sure all his employees were safe for the night.

The tea was horrible, but he had put enough sugar in it that you couldn't really tell. Wesley slid further into the couch, wedging himself into the corner. He wondered if, as boss, it would be entirely proper if he were to maybe keep a few things in one of the hotel's rooms. Toothbrush, change of clothes, razor. Sheets, blanket, pillow. All of his possessions. He would have moved in all ready if he hadn't felt he would be encroaching on Angel's space, or if he felt capable of asking Angel if he could live with him, or if he felt capable of living with Angel. Maybe he should go back home before he fell asleep here on the couch.

When he had first wound up in this hot, dusty town, he had told himself that a swinging bachelor's pad is exactly what a Los Angeles private detective needed. Somewhere to take enchanted women after he had charmed them with his accent and stories of derring-do. He sipped his tea again. Someone in his particular line of work should probably never say that last phrase out loud lest it be taken literally, he mused.

Anyway, his swinging bachelor pad had been a total bust, the first woman he'd brought back to it had seen to that. They had met at the Laundromat and she had been just as charmed as anticipated by the accent, leather jacket and motorcycle, and despite the inelegance of two people on a motorcycle with large bags of laundry hanging off of either side, she had made it quite clear that she was coming home with him. She had been exactly the type of bleach-blonde, flat-stomached, big-breasted girl that the film industry would have you believe ran rampant all over California.

After he had pulled out and moved off of her he had kissed her and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his face to her neck, his chest to her back, his legs to her legs, ready to bask in that glow as well as the lingering traces of sunlight- and she had asked him for cab fare. Humiliated, he had gotten dressed and hunted up the few bucks, all of it in quarters, that he actually had in the apartment. She waited for the cab downstairs.

He tried to stop this train of thought before it careened on but it was too late. He had gone past musing into melancholy.

He really should have realized that his relationship with Virginia was to be just as doomed as his tryst with the blonde from the Laundromat. She had wanted him because she had thought he was Angel, slept with him because she had thought he was Angel, and then dumped him because of something that was an inexorable part of him, Wesley.

But at least she had been someone to wake up next to, someone to hold close during a movie, someone to wrap an arm around his stomach while he brushed his teeth at night. He would never find a way to admit it to anyone, and it was quite possible that he would burst into flames on the spot if he ever did, but he truly needed those types of physical displays of affection in his life. Strange though it may sound, his and Gunn's silly handshake was a huge highlight in his day. Last Friday he had rested his head in a book and Cordelia had brushed her hand over the back of his head as she had walked by. Just softly, briefly, absentmindedly but it had been… sort of wonderful. That was one of the reasons he loved it here in the hotel so much. The lobby felt like it was holding him in, his apartment felt like it was just the box he was kept in. Like the closet under the stairs…

In America they would probably diagnose this as some sort of "issue" and blame it on his lack of affection growing up, there would probably be pills and group hugs and meetings with coffee that tasted like gasoline. But Wesley understood that he was just desperate for affection, horribly lonely, and terrified of losing the people he loved. He didn't want to feel the pain of Angel's sudden departure again. He had been able to cover it by diving into the work, saving people from demons and darkness, he had been able to take charge and make Gunn, Cordelia and himself their own group, but it had cut him deep. He didn't need to pay someone an exorbitant fee to tell him that for an hour every week.

Ughhhh…It was late, his research wasn't getting him anywhere, and there would be plenty of demons to read about, chop into little bits, bury, burn and cover up tomorrow. Perhaps he should throw in the towel, give up, go back to his apartment. But maybe first, he thought, he would just close his eyes, listen to the footsteps of the radiator, the contented sigh of the eaves settling, the…

"Wes? Wes?,"

Wesley woke with a start, Angel had knocked on the book laying open on his stomach.

"Whatwhat? Angel…"

"What are you still doing here?"

Wesley sat up, "Oh, erm… demons, you know."

"Right," Angel grinned at him, his big, sweet, toothy grin. His meeting with his informant must have gone well, "Those."

"I was on my way, actually," Wesley told him, "Must have dozed off. Your meeting went well I take it?"

"Didn't even have to threaten him," Angel replied, striding to the main desk, pulling off his leather coat, and hanging it over the back of a chair. "We're going to have our work cut out for us tomorrow, you should get to sleep, Wes," he hopped up a couple of stairs, looped his arm around the staircase and swung his body out from it lazily, "You've been staying late for what? Weeks? Months?"

"Right, just about," Wesley agreed, rubbing his hand over his eye, "You're right. I just have… erm, a couple of things to finish up… before I go."

"Okay," Angel said, starting back up the stairs, "Goodnight, Wes."

Wesley rubbed the sleep out of his eyes again, and listened to the sound of Angel's footsteps as he went down the upstairs hallway, the creak of his door opening, the clack of it closing. He gathered up his book and his dirty mug and started for his office.

The shine off of Angel's coat caught his eye. He licked his lips and continued into his office, setting the book and the mug on his desk before he walked back out to the lobby and listened carefully… to nothing but the settling of the eves, the squeaking of the pipes and the pretend footsteps of the radiator. He stepped toward the coat, set his hands on it and listened again-still no sound.

He had been hoping it would still be warm, then realized that was silly. Of course the vampire's coat wouldn't be warm. He pulled it delicately off of the chair, holding it out in front of him, and listened again-still nothing. He felt his breathing sped up even though he was walking to the couch slowly. He laid the coat out on the couch, carefully lowered himself onto it, and straining his ears for any sound of a real footstep, wrapped the coat's arms around himself, and let out a relieved sigh.

This was probably as close as he would ever get.