Realization – Gunn
It's a good thing that the white hats are out in full force tonight; cause the other side is damned numerous. I wish Cordy's vision had been a little more specific about the numbers we were going to be facing, I would have known to make up a few explosives before we left. I love what a creative person can do with chemicals found around the home. English has been offering the type of chemistry classes I can really get into lately. I'd have enjoyed the opportunity to practice.
But we didn't know in advance so all we brought was the usual hardware, still we're getting the job done. Wesley and I are back to back, we've got three of 'em focused on us, it was five a few minutes ago.
Cordy's about three yards to off to the right. I'm not too worried, she's got a building at her back and Angel to help her. Judging from the looks of things they're more than holding their own, as well. The machete Cordy holds is dripping with grayish blood and Angel's absolutely covered in the stuff. The bodies of four more of the demons lay scattered around them. I knew I was right to bring Soulful with us. Tonight lethal force is completely appropriate and as long as he does what comes naturally and keeps them from getting to Cordy, he's doing great.
We need to get Angel back into the fighting the 'dark forces' and all that. He needs something to do, a bored vampire with a mind that's half-cat, half two-year-old is trouble looking for a place to happen.
From watching Soulful and Spike, the bleached wonder, I know Angel's still got the reflexes to handle himself in a fight and he listens well enough to Cordy to keep me from worrying about him going after the wrong target. So long as we keep him to fighting demons he'll be fine. Tonight was the perfect time to give Angel a field test. We were going after a nest; it didn't seem likely that there'd be any human types about, not live ones anyway.
Beach more than agrees with English and I that this is a good idea. He says that hardest thing about adapting to his chip was not being able to do violence. Thought he'd go insane 'fore he realized that other demons were still fair game.
Speaking of Bleach, he's got his hands full. There's dark red blood covering half his face from a scalp wound, combined with the glowing yellow eyes, the fangs and the knotted forehead he's a scary looking son-of-a-bitch, but there's three of them and no one to 'em off his back. Worse still he wasn't able to get out of the open.
"English, think we can give Bleach a hand?" I ask.
"Ready when you are," Wesley replies.
Together we move toward Spike. Our playmates come along, but six on three aren't any worse odds than we've been facing all night.
"Come to hog my fun?" Spike asks as we join him. He slips easily into formation with Wesley and I to form a mutually protective triangle.
"Looked like more fun than you could handle," I comment slicing the head off one of my opponents. Bleach isn't too bad… for a soulless bloodsucker. 'Course if you ask him, I'm not too bad… for a Happy Meal on legs.
It's a good thing that we get along okay, cause about a week after finding out 'bout Soulful getting messed up Bleach moved into town. It was like havin' in-laws, you invite 'em down for a visit and then you can't get 'em to leave.
Back then I was torn between wanting to stake him and being glad to have someone around who could match Angel for strength. Back then I was against keeping Angel too.
It wasn't for the reasons everyone thought though. I'm not Harris, I don't hold to outdated grudges. I was wrong. Angel didn't flake out on us again. I'd pretty much forgiven him for the first time anyway. Hell, I've been guilty of getting so caught up in avengin' the dead that I forgot the living once myself. My stupidity cost Alora her life. When I saw Angel fallin' into the same trap I was determined to protect Cordy and English. When he up and disappeared again all I could see was that they were hurting on his account again.
I was pretty mad about that for a long time, but once Lockley showed him to us it was plain that he didn't have any control of what had happened. He didn't choose to hurt us and there was no reason to punish him for a past misery that hadn't even been his fault. The reason I wanted Angel killed wasn't that I was holdin' a grudge, and it wasn't just cause I thought he was too dangerous to keep. I thought he was already dead, that everything that made him Angel was already gone and that the only decent thing to do was lay his corpse to rest.
These days I'm glad no one listened to me, 'cause I don't believe that Angel's gone after all.
How we figured out Angel was getting bored was he started breaking out of his rooms on a regular basis. He'd always turn up just short of daybreak and he'd look remorseful when Cordy scolded him. But the length of time between his Houdini acts was getting steadily shorter.
We were all waiting for something catastrophic to happen. Instead one morning Angel brings back this little five-year-old girl. She was completely taken with him. Told us she got lost and monsters chased her till Angel scared 'em off.
It took us a while to get her back to her home because according to her, her parents were named Mom and Dad. We weren't real comfortable having her around Angel so much, but he was the one she felt safest with. Angel was surprisingly good with her, you could see he trying his hardest to help her and that he worried when she got homesick.
Course we weren't real pleased when the two of them took off, as best we can figure it they were looking for her family.
When we did get a hold of her parents Angel gave the kid back real nice. We'd been worried about that too, afraid he'd get attached and want to keep her.
The whole incident convinced me that no matter how screwed up Angel's brain was his heart hadn't changed. I think he'll do fine helpin' people again. Maybe he'll even improve some if we get him back into the swing of things. Heck, maybe the PTB will finally cut him and break and fix him so he can be more of a warrior again.
Of course the Slayer's gonna be a bitch about this. The girl acts like Angel's made of glass these days. I think she feels guilty. I'm not really interested in the Slayer's issues though. I' interested in saving people and I think Angel can help. It won't do him any harm and it might do him some good, so I'm going let him and the Slayer can just deal. It ain't like she's around much anymore anyway.
"Well, that was bracing," English pants and the last demon is dealt with. Cordy fastidiously cleans her knife on the hide of one of the demons. Bleach is giving Soulful a once over and Angel's looking all worried about the blood on Spike's face. He reaches out to carefully touch the half-healed cut on Spike's forehead.
"Don't be a mother hen, Peaches," Spike gripes, but he lets Angel satisfy himself that there's nothing seriously wrong. Once he's done looking over the only injured member of the party he checks the rest of us for anything he might of missed.
When he's done seeing that no one's been hurt I say, "You did good Soulful." And I could swear he understood me well enough to be embarrassed.