"Epiphany," Part III
"Well, I'm not gonna lie, I'm glad someone else was impregnated with demon spawn this time." Cordelia was leaning over the back of Wesley's head, which was blinking up at her. "That had to hurt."
"It did. Very much so." Wesley agreed, finally pulling himself up off the floor and brushing the dust off his pants. Dust that had been caused from half the house collapsing as Angel drove a pickup truck through the side of it. At least the Sharps weren't likely to sue, under the circumstances… on account of them all being dead.
"No worries, man. We've got some of that de-oculation powder back at the office." Gunn assured his friend. "You'll be back to just the four eyes in no time."
Doyle was standing several feet away, hands sunk deep inside his pockets, watching the others collect themselves, trying not to read too much into Cordelia's callous "demon spawn" comment—she couldn't possibly have meant it the way he was taking it. No matter how angry she was at him, she'd never take such a cheap shot. No, she had to be referring to the Haxil demon spawn. Still, Doyle couldn't help but feel a little wounded by her words, along with the void that now existed between the two of them.
Meanwhile, there was an easy camaraderie that existed between she and her current co-workers. A camaraderie that didn't extend to Doyle and Angel, which was understandable. It was still hard to stand there, being the odd man out. Odd demon out. Along with the odd vampire out, who was standing awkwardly on the other side of the room, idly inspecting the bodies of the Skilosh demons he'd just run over. Where did Angel get that pickup truck anyway?
Last Doyle had seen Angel, he was taking on a group of Skilosh demons alone in the middle of a public street, and he'd insisted that Doyle continue on with Gunn—who'd they found at the office—and Cordelia to save Wesley, who had been led into a trap by their former clients, the Sharps. It had been a tough call—Doyle didn't want to leave Angel without any backup, but his instinct was to follow Cordelia, whether he was "allowed" to help her not. The truth was, Gunn probably needed Doyle's backup more than Angel, so Doyle had taken Angel's car and followed Gunn's truck to the Sharp residence—where the three rescuers had quickly become hostages.
Until Angel showed up and saved them all. Right in the nick of time.
Cordelia wheeled herself backwards, as Gunn lent a helping shoulder to Wesley, who was not only in possession of a brand new third eye, but also a multitude of cuts and bruises, courtesy of the disgruntled demons. The two men limped toward the brand new exit in the side of Sharp's mansion, leaving Cordelia to navigate herself to the proper front door. Doyle knew she would need help getting down the steps, and probably needed additional help getting into one of the two vehicles parked out front that hadn't been used as a battering ram. Doyle also knew better than to offer any assistance, choosing instead to hang back until the coast was clear.
Angel, apparently, hadn't quite gotten the memo. "Let me get that for you." He said, jumping forward to open the front door and then pointing to the small set of stairs leading down to the front walk. "I can carry you to the car."
"Gunn!" Cordelia shouted, wheeling herself to the edge of the top step, dismissing Angel without so much as a gesture. "Can I get a little help here?"
Doyle watched from inside the house as Angel's shoulders slumped with the rejection. And he felt an irrational surge of jealousy as Gunn came to her aid, lifting her out of her wheelchair and carrying her to his truck. He knew there was nothing to actually be jealous of, nor did he have any right to feel such a thing, but at that moment, he was jealous of anyone and anything allowed to be closer to her than he was… which was everyone and everything.
Turning away from the scene, Doyle began sifting through the wreckage inside the house, waiting until he heard Gunn's truck pull away, before he finally dared to head toward the front door. There he found Angel pouting alone on the front stoop, looking longingly into the distance. "I really screwed things up." The vampire noted.
"Yeah, ya did." Doyle agreed. "We both did. And I think it's pretty clear they're not willing to work with us again."
"So, what do we do now?" Angel wondered.
"Ah… if dating Cordelia all that time taught me anything, it's that groveling can be quite an effective strategy." Doyle replied with a mirthless chuckle. "If we wanna work with 'em, we're gonna have to ask if they have any job openings. Maybe even beg."
"You're saying we should go work at the new place?" Angel asked with surprise. "Just leave the hotel behind?"
"If that's what it takes." Doyle confirmed. "But, I'm thinking they'll come around on that point eventually—it's less about location and more about control. Think ya can hand the reins over?"
Angel didn't answer right away and Doyle was worried he'd balk for a moment, but instead the vampire nodded slowly. "Whatever it takes." He answered, taking the steps down to the front walk and making his way to the convertible parked haphazardly across the front lawn, where Doyle had dumped it.
"By the way man, where'd ya get that thing?" Doyle asked, hiking a thumb toward the truck sticking halfway out of the Sharp residence, as he headed down the steps behind Angel.
"Oh, that's Lindsey's." Angel commented offhandedly. "I borrowed it after he tried to run me over."
Doyle's brows shot upward in surprise. "Why'd he do a thing like that? Aside from the fact that he hates ya and always has."
"He's in love with Darla." Angel replied simply, opening up the car door and plopping into the driver's seat.
Sliding into the passenger side of the car, Doyle chortled as he considered that sentence. "And what did ya do to the fella for the whole running ya over bit? He missing another hand?"
"I just borrowed his car." Angel promised, starting the engine of the convertible and backing the car out onto the street. "Lucky for him I had an epiphany."
Doyle followed Angel through the front door to The…? Come to think of it, he had no idea what they were calling themselves these days. The flyers were kind of vague on that point, as was the sign on the door, which listed their business hours and little else.
Figuratively, both Angel and Doyle had their hats in their hands, although neither one of them were big on wearing hats. Actually, that wasn't entirely true—Doyle did love himself a good hat every now and then. He made a mental note to look through all those boxes of his and see if he still had his favorite hat somewhere. It may have been a casualty of Cordelia's incineration pile.
Wesley rose from behind the desk, with Gunn standing at his right shoulder, arms crossed in silent defense. Cordelia sat to the left of the desk, in her wheelchair—the power of her gaze as strong as ever. Her lack of enthusiasm at seeing the two men in the open doorway spoke volumes, and Doyle started to regret convincing Angel to do this. Perhaps, it was selfish of Doyle to want to join forces with their old teammates—this was probably just an excuse for him to be near Cordelia again. But, perhaps, that wasn't what Cordelia wanted or needed. Perhaps, she still needed time. And space. Either way, it was too late now.
"I'm sorry." Angel said, and Doyle almost had to cringe. While he didn't doubt the sincerity of the words, he had heard them fall far too many times from the vampire's lips in the last twenty-four hours to hold any actual meaning at this point. This was never going to be solved with words, anyway.
"Angel, before you say any more I think I should tell you, we've all discussed this, and none of us are ready just yet—" Wesley began to let them down easy, but Angel cut in, making sure Wesley and the others knew just how serious he was about making amends.
"It's okay, Wesley." Angel interjected. "I don't want you to come back and work for me."
"Oh." Wesley said, not hiding his surprise by the unexpected turn in the conversation. "I see."
"I wanna work for you." Angel continued, and then gestured to Doyle who stood silently behind him, staring at the floor. "We both do. We want to join the—um, your agency. What's it called again?"
Doyle wanted to look up at Cordelia's face to gauge her reaction, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He needed to wait and let Angel do the talking. The chips would fall where they were going to fall.
"You guys wanna work for us?" Gunn asked in disbelief. "Didn't see that coming."
"Why?" Wesley asked curiously, tilting his head and aiming a skeptical gaze in Angel's direction. "What's changed?"
"Nothing's changed—I just… I had an epiphany." Angel explained lamely. "You're still fighting evil, and that's what I wanna do. I believe I can help."
Wesley exchanged a loaded glance with Gunn first and then Cordelia, both of whom looked like they had reservations. The lanky Brit cleared his throat and addressed his two co-workers. "Well… I do suppose it'd be useful to have a direct connection to the Powers That Be."
"Makes sense to me." Gunn agreed.
"And we could certainly use the additional… office space that the hotel would provide." Wesley continued. "Not to mention the expanded library and advanced weaponry."
There was a longer pause before Cordelia added her own voice to the mix. "And the car."
Gunn huffed. "Hey, don't be dissing my truck. She may not be as shiny as Angel's ride, but that old girl's been there when it counted."
Cordelia ignored Gunn's objections, keeping her fierce eyes firmly planted on Angel, and only Angel. "If you come work for us—how do we know we can trust you?" Doyle wondered if at any point she'd ask that question of him, but she didn't appear to even care he was in the room. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. He would've liked to think she didn't need to ask such a question of Doyle, knowing that she could always trust him. He just wasn't so sure that's how she saw it anymore.
"I guess I'll just have to earn your trust again." Angel responded.
"We did have trouble settling on a name." Wesley admitted. "Perhaps, we should consider the value in reverting to the name of our former business… Assuming we are all in agreement." Once again he sought the eyes of both Gunn and Cordelia for their decision on the matter.
Doyle thought Gunn looked open enough to the idea, but Cordelia was much harder to read. Much, much harder. He thought there may have been a subtle nod on her part, but then he became quite distracted as a silent alarm bell went off in his head. He stumbled backward, nearly knocked off his feet. "Aaaaaaaaah!"
As his brain was sliced and diced by visions of a hideous demon rising somewhere north of the city, Doyle held on to his head for dear life, waiting until he could once again see the images of reality in front of his eyes. His head pulsated and pounded, and he kept his eyes tightly shut even after the vision had released him. "Think that's the Powers' way of saying they approve." He gasped aloud, more to himself more than the others.
Angel had successfully caught Doyle before he went crashing backward through the glass-plated front door. And it was Angel that ushered him forward, easing him into one of the two empty chairs in front of Wesley's desk. Doyle took the seat gratefully, and rubbed at his forehead as he acclimated himself to the old familiar feeling of having multiple pairs of eyes waiting on his interpretation of the messages from above.
"Big nasty thing rising in Topanga. Looks like a housing project of some sort. Just west o' the freeway. There's a Denny's across the street, if that helps." Doyle described the vague location as best he could.
"That helps." Angel assured him. He eagerly looked up at the other three occupants of the room. "My car's out front. Ready to go."
"Let's get moving, then." Wesley agreed with mildly tempered excitement, circling around the desk with Gunn at his heels, only stopping momentarily to yank a crossbow off a counter-top.
Gunn, too, grabbed his special homemade axe from where it was leaning against a wall behind the desk. "This thing is toast!" He exclaimed. "Assuming the slice and dice method will work."
Doyle sat hunched in the chair for an extra beat. His head was still throbbing, more so than usual. In fact, the last one had hit hard and lingered long as well, but he'd fought through it for Cordelia's sake. All the pain in the world wouldn't have kept him from rescuing her.
"Doyle?" Wesley's voice cut back in, and Doyle raised his weary head. Judging by the other man's expression, it wasn't the first time his name had been spoken. "Are you alright?"
"Maybe… Doyle can work on ID-ing this thing?" Angel suggested. He'd halted at the front door, and apparently identified his friend's not-so-subtle distress. Either that or he was meddling in a way that he shouldn't be. "If slicing and dicing doesn't work, we'll need a plan B."
"Oh yes, that's a good point." Wesley agreed, catching on to one or both of Angel's ulterior motives. "There's also the matter of proper disposal methods, which we'll surely need, if this creature is as large as Doyle's indicated."
Doyle was frozen in his chair, blatantly put on the spot. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Cordelia slowly wheel herself behind the desk, and begin to straighten up the few items that were sprawled out across it. He knew her well enough to know she was preparing to execute the extreme cold shoulder, should the two of them be left alone together.
If looks could kill, Angel would have been a dead(er) man for putting Doyle in this awkward position. On the other hand, there was something to be said about pulling off the Band-Aid. He'd need to speak to Cordelia at some point; now was as good a time as any. Pounding head or no pounding head. And perhaps, not having his head literally pounded into the pavement, was a wise idea.
"Wesley's the boss, yeah?" Doyle finally relented, rubbing the side of his head to alleviate the continued ache. "I'll stick with research duty tonight, if ya feel it's best."
Wesley seemed surprised by Doyle's christening of him as the new "boss," but once the shock subsided, he was clearly pleased by the title. He puffed his chest up and a small smile hinted at the edge of his lips. He slung the crossbow over his shoulder proudly. "This sounds like a very reasonable delegation of duty. We'll be sure to check in after we've slain the creature."
Doyle nodded back at Wesley and watched as the three eager heroes disappeared out the front door and to Angel's car waiting at the curb. The door closed behind them, and Doyle finally turned to face the only other occupant of the room, who looked anything but pleased to have company. Talk about looks that could kill.
"How transparent can you get, huh? Oh, whoa is me with my big, bad migraine." Cordelia mocked him coldly. "You have visions all the time, and it's never stopped you from fighting."
"Hey, I didn't ask to be stuck behind with the books." He defended himself. "In my experience, they don't generally help with the migraines. Speaking of which, ya got any aspirin 'round here? Or better yet, whiskey?"
She ignored his request, choosing to continue with her scolding. "I also think it's pretty rude that you assumed Wesley was the boss here."
"Ah, ya got me there." He spoke to her candidly, dropping his hand away from his head. He supposed he shouldn't hold his breath for that aspirin.
"You should've gone with them." She said curtly, dropping her eyes to the paperwork stacked in the middle of her desk and pretending to be interested in anything other than the man across from her. This was an old trick of hers he was quite accustomed to—her way of building and maintaining the invisible wall between them. The wall that protected her from getting too close. "I'm not interested in having some long, drawn-out, angsty conversation. Not now, not ever."
"I don't want that either." Doyle reassured her, leaning his arms on the edge of the desk across from her. "But it wasn't Wesley's approval I came here looking for, yeah?"
She had picked up a pencil and was making small notations on the paperwork in front of her, but she paused at his words and lifted her eyes to give him a wary look. If he wanted to work with her, he had to make her believe it was safe to do so. And she'd only believe it was safe if he gave her the space she needed—and the control.
"This is your company. If ya don't want me being a part of it, I won't." He said simply, opening his hands in silent question even before he officially posed one. "So the only thing we needa discuss here, is this—are ya willing to work with me again?"
He saw the conflict in her face and the subtle movement in her throat as she swallowed. The clock on the wall was ticking away, much louder than it had any right to be. It reminded Doyle of his broken watch sitting on his dresser back at the hotel, not making so much as a peep.
"What if I say no?" She asked quietly, observing him closely for a reaction.
Doyle did his best to remain unaffected, keeping his voice amicable and his expression relatively neutral. "That'll be a bit of a challenge. I'm still the lucky guy with the visions—not to mention, a resident of the hotel. But…" He paused, making sure he'd captured those hazel eyes of hers with his contrite green ones. "I'll respect your feelings on the matter. If ya don't want me around, I'll make myself scarce. Ya won't even know I'm there." He ventured a small grin with the slightest flash of his dimple, trying to add a drop of levity to the heaviness of the moment. "I would, however, appreciate ya not charging me for every vision."
Cordelia said nothing at first, dropping her eyes back to the desk in front of her as she mulled over his proposition, clearly considering it from more than one angle. "You couldn't afford us." She muttered, only the slightest hint of a joke could be found in her words, but that was something.
"Ah… not unless I call up a few o' my old gambling buddies." Doyle jested. "But then, I'd probably have to hire ya to get 'em all off my back again."
She didn't even crack a smile at that flop of a joke. And after what seemed like a small eternity, she exhaled a long breath and raised her eyes back to meet his. "We're professionals, aren't we? We should be able to put aside our differences and work together for the common good."
"O'course." Doyle agreed, as a spout of relief opened inside him. He hadn't been entirely certain she'd agree to him joining the company; he'd been silently letting himself down easy. Imagining what it would be like to navigate his duty to Angel around a business he wouldn't be a part of, but she had mercifully let him off the hook. "Just like when all this started, yeah?"
"Co-workers." Cordelia added swiftly, pointing her pencil in the air for emphasis. "Two people sharing office space and a similar job description. That's it. Not friends or… anything."
"Yeah." Doyle agreed once more, a little less enthusiastically than the first time. His heart sank. It wasn't surprising to hear her say such a thing. But, that didn't mean it didn't hurt. He wasn't even sure what it meant to be something to her without being anything. "The work's the important thing."
"Welcome aboard." Cordelia chirped, nodding toward the bookshelf against the wall without looking up from her paperwork. "The books are over there—you should probably start with one of the thicker demon indexes."
