A Different Sight. Some moments look different, depending on where you're looking from.
"You got a real addiction to the broodin' part of life, anyone ever tell you that?"
Angel laughs a little, just a small sound that holds no real humor, and casts him a sideways glance. "Once or twice."
"Care to explain? I mean this ring is your redemption, it's what you've been waiting for." It's what you've wanted, Doyle wants to say. It's everything you've wanted, and I want to give it to you if I can.
"No, it just looks like it."
"Angel man, think what you're saying." Think of what you're giving up.
"I have. I've thought about it from every angle. What I figure is that I did a lot of damage in my day. More than you could imagine." Doyle doesn't twitch, doesn't blink, lets no reaction to that statement flow over his usually expressive face. Angel has never found out that he really does know it all, in glorious Technicolor, accompanied by the standard mind-splitting headache, and he doesn't intend to tell him. Doesn't intend to see his friend turn away from that knowledge, as he knows Angel will.
"So what, you figure you don't get the ring because your period of self-flagellation isn't over? I mean, think of all the daytime people you could help between nine and five?"
"They have help. The whole world is designed around them. So much that they have no idea what goes on around them after dark. You don't see the weak ones lost in the night or the things that prey on them. If I join them, maybe I'd stop seeing too."
It's too true, too logical and sensible and right and Doyle knows it, but he doesn't want to admit it. Doesn't want to admit, even in his own head, that it might be the right thing to do for his friend to give everything up, because he wants Angel to have what he desires, even though he doesn't want to think too closely about why he wants so much for Angel, and so little for himself, anymore.
"I mean, who'd look out for all the insomniacs?" That's good, Doyle, humor to cover up that your heart is breaking.
"I was brought back for a reason, Doyle. As much as I'd like to kid myself, I don't think it was for eighteen holes of rancho." Heh, he's still the same, even though it must be killing him to be losing this, to be losing what he's always wanted. He's still making a little joke, that little smile curling the corners of his mouth, and his eyes still rip holes in my heart. He hasn't changed. Maybe he never will.
Angel stares into the dying sunset for a long moment, then slides the ring from his finger and sets it on the wall. Reaching down, he picks up a brick lying near his feet and raises it high. Doyle shifts, wanting to say no, to stop him, to steal the ring away and make him take back what he'd just said, take away the logic of it, and give him the sense of redemption he so clearly needed, no matter how false it would be, but he can't. He knows it is the right thing to do, what Angel is doing, but his heart aches no less for his friend. So he says nothing, does nothing, just watches helplessly as Angel smashes the brick down on the ring that embodies everything he's ever desired out of his unlife.
Angel prowls restlessly back and forth across the room, from the bed, to the window, and then over to the chest of drawers with the drawer missing. Bending down, he runs his fingers lightly over the wood, when he's attacked from behind, the unknown assailant choking him.
A few brief moments and light bruises later, the demon is up against the doorframe, his face pressed into the wood and his arms twisted behind his back where he can't twist them free again. Angel slams his cheek into the doorframe and says cheerfully, "My name's Angel. What's yours?"
"Screw you."
Another slam, and another question, this one sounding much more forced. "My name's Angel, what's yours?" No answer, another slam.
"Griff."
"Good start. Who do you work for?"
"He never gave me his card."
Smartass, Angel thinks, and tosses him onto the floor, Angel following and twisting his arm. "I don't know his name, he gets his orders to me."
"You can get a message back to him?" A nod is his response this time, and he steps away and lets the demon scramble to his feet.
"You're letting me go?"
"No, I'm letting you up." Jesus, they don't come to bright anymore, do they? Not that bully-boys were ever too smart, not in his experience. They worked better for you that way. "You were sent to collect for Doyle?"
"At first. But I'm not seeing any money, so now Doyle gets dead, as a message to the others."
Not if he has a fucking thing to say about it, Angel thinks with a snarl, though he's wise enough not to show it. No one is touching his friend. "And your boss never gets his money," he says coolly, not letting an ounce of his rage show. "Expensive message when he adds whatever he's paying you to do the job."
"My fees are very competitive," the demon says, sounding surprised and offended, not that Angel particularly cares about the offended part. Surprised is good, though. It means Angel has the bully-boy off balance, and that's always good.
"I can get Doyle to pay you the money," Angel says tightly, knowing what a battle that's going to be, considering that he doubts Doyle even has the money. "You have my guarantee." Sort of.
"I saw what I saw, right?" the demon asks with a little smirk. "You're a vampire. Coming here helping some little demon half-breed."
Now his rage is roaring even higher, the demon clamoring to be let out again, so he can rip this insolent creature to shreds. This Griff may be a demon, and fairly well set-up with brute strength, but he has nothing compared to Angelus, the Scourge of Europe, and it is Angelus that is begging for his blood at the moment, just because the low-life demon has insulted his friend. But Angelus has never rattled his chains at an insult to a friend before. An insult to Buffy, once or twice, a threat to Buffy, certainly, but never an insult to someone who is a friend. Admittedly, Doyle is a better friend that any other, but he doesn't want to think about what this fierce protectiveness- from his demon side, even- could mean, not in the long run. So he sets it aside for a brooding session later and focuses on the moment.
"It's a good offer. You should take it. On the other hand, you're making me want to fight some more. If you're lucky, you might last ten minutes. Really lucky and you're unconscious for the last five."
Threats, he's good at those. He's always been good with threats, especially since he's been Angel and often uses them when he doesn't actually want to hurt someone, but they've always lacked this punch, this bite. Because now, with Angelus loud inside his head, he means every word.
"You get Doyle to pay, and he's safe." Glad to hear it, he snarls mentally, but keeps his expression blank.
"Thanks. Good meeting you."
Not.
Angel watches as Doyle turns the key, testing the shiny new lock, and then shuts the door. "There, safe as houses."
"You gonna live like this?" It hurts to think that he could choose this, could want this when he could have so much better.
"I don't see havin' a deadbolt having a huge effect on my lifestyle," Doyle says, mock-cheerfully, the same way he always does, as he tosses the new keys onto a small table.
"You know what I mean." Of course he does. Doyle just doesn't want to talk about it, never really wants to talk about it, because it's too close, to raw. Too painful.
"Yeah, well there might be... misunderstandings. That sort of thing." Doyle sat down, and Angel took the few steps that put him in front of the chair that faced Doyle's and sat down in it, staring at him.
"You know I'll help you out." Because I want to, because you're my friend and I think I see you as more if my demon is any indication, not just because it's what I do, but he says none of this out loud.
"For which I'm grateful." More than you could know, Doyle thinks, but he, too says nothing.
"But, sooner or later, I'm going to need to hear it."
"Hear what?"
"The story of your life." I want to know everything about you, can't you see that?
"Eh, and quite a tale it is, too, full of ribald adventures and beautiful damsels with... loose morals-"
"Doyle."
He shifts, looks around the room, and then brings his uncomfortable gaze back to Angel. "I will. Just... give me time. The past... don't let go, does she?" And it hurt, Angel knew that. It hurt Doyle, whatever it was that was in his past, it burned whenever he actually thought about it. Angel could understand that. He has a lifetime of those things.
"She never does."
"You had the one thing you've wanted in your unnaturally long life, and you gave it back?" Doyle is still processing, still trying to comprehend the enormity of what his friend has done. If what Angel is saying is true, then the sacrifice he had made... the pain that he must be going through... he can't bear the thought.
"Maybe I was wrong." Angel's voice is sad, and Doyle's heart aches for him. He can't imagine being faced with that choice, and then having to live with the thought that it may have been the wrong one.
"Or maybe Cordelia was right about you being the real deal in the hero department. See, I would have chosen the pleasures of the flesh over duty and honor any day of the week. I just don't have that strength." He can't save himself, much less anyone else. Anyone could tell that, just by looking at him. As Cordelia has said: Less "Every man" and more "weasel."
"You never know your strength until you're tested." Angel sees the doubting smirk written across Doyle's face, the negating shake of his head, but he knows what he said is the truth. He knows that the half-demon that has become his friend has an astonishing core of steel in his soul for those he cares about, if only he'd reach down and admit it is there.
"You've lived and loved and lost and fought and vanquished inside a day, and I'm still trying to work up the nerve to ask Cordy out for dinner. Not to mention the whole part about telling her I'm half-demon. That should probably come first, yeah?"
Angel disregards that, too tired today to deal with the possessive screams of his demon that echo in his head whenever Doyle talks about Cordelia. "The Oracles said something very bad is coming. Soldiers of darkness ushering in the End of Days kind of bad."
"So much for the security of long-term savings bonds." Doyle has every right to laugh, Angel sees, because he knows the danger, and he will be there to fight it, no matter how cowardly he thinks himself to be. Sometimes Angel thinks that he knows Doyle better than Doyle knows himself.
"I feel something coming Doyle, I don't know what, but I know we're part of it." We're always part of it, don't you know that by now?
"Well, if it's a fight they want...can't someone else give it to 'em? Just seems unfair, you know? You have to save all the helpless types, and now you have to avert the apocalypse as well?" Angel sees the concern in his friend's eyes, the caring and the worry that he's trying to take the whole world onto his shoulders, but he can't look that concern in the eye today or he's going to break down and listen to it, and he can't do that, not today. Not when there's another flood of darkness brewing. Of course, there was always a flood of darkness brewing, so it made for a good permanent excuse for him to not think about what he was actually feeling for his friend.
"It's all the same thing. Fight the good fight, whichever way you can." Even if it means losing everything you've ever wanted, and everything you ever might want.
"Tell you what- you fight, and I'll keep score."
"Angel, it's suicide." Of course it's suicide, Angel wants to scream at her, but it's the only way. Can't you see that?
"There's gotta be another way." That's Doyle, worried, caring about him the same way he's always done. If only it had ever been more.
"No." Cordelia again, as she sees that he means it on his face. She's still denying it, his girl is, but Doyle knows what's going to happen. Doyle always seems to know what's in his heart, except that one most important truth that he kept so deeply hidden that even he could barely realize it. Doyle has never seen it, and Angel has never had the courage to tell him that he loved him.
He turns to his friend, wanting to say it but not sure how to force the words past the constriction in his throat. Doyle smiles sadly as Angel rests one hand on his shoulder, wrapping his own hand around Angel's wrist. "The good fight, yeah? You never know until you've been tested. I get that now." He smiles again, and his intent flashes in his pale green eyes, but Angel can't register it fast enough to react before Doyle pulls back his other hand and punches his best friend in the face, sending him flying off the catwalk to land with a thud on the floor.
Doyle turns to Cordelia and steps closer, then kisses her, long and slow, before pulling back with a little smile. "Too bad we'll never know," and his face shifts smoothly to his demon visage, "if this is a face you could learn to love."
Angel looked up from where he had fallen, muttering, "Doyle, no." He jumps to his feet, agony in his eyes, and leaps for the ladder, starting to climb frantically higher, screaming Doyle's name, but he's too late, and his friend jumps for the Beacon just as he reaches the catwalk. He lands and pulls himself up, smiling back at Angel with that same old smirk in his eyes for the last time, and then turns back and tries to pull the plug.
His scream of agony haunts them as he is swallowed by a ball of light and vanishes, taking the Beacon's light with him.