Author: Roseveare, t.l.green@talk21.com
Rating: PG-13 (for violence, bad language and bad jokes)
Summary: "Of all the options I was weighing for the evening, being held captive by gangster demons alongside *you* was not exactly a feature on my list..." Wesley and Doyle are having a Really Bad Day.
Background: An episode of Angel: the Cyber Series, set in an alternate universe where Hero never happened. In the previous episode, Doyle almost died from a demon illness caught off Dinah, the demon child Cordy has been looking after. Wesley showed up in LA but has not yet met the AI team, only Harry. Read previous stories by various writers at http://www.haelen.org/cleocalliope/atcs/
Disclaimer: Joss and co own all Angel the series characters and concepts, not me. I make no profit from this. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Author Note: Roseveare attempts to write action comedy. And original Buffyverse characters. Ye gods... just shoot me now.
Note: Marlon the demon would like to thank his agent, his mum, the inspirational stars of all those old classics, and the other nice people who made his guest starring role possible.
Rogue Demons
Part 3
The demon bar located behind the games room of its equivalent human business front was noisy, and their private negotiations were starting to resemble a shouting competition. Angel was also uncomfortable about the way Harry was watching the group of Lamask demons playing pool in the corner, an academic interest in her eyes which made him suspect she was going to shoot over there to engage them in a detailed questioning of their mating habits or something else that would likely start a brawl.
"Honestly, Angel, I wouldn't have started this if I'd even suspected I might be able to negotiate reasonably with you," Marlon yelled, over the suddenly enthusiastic cheers of the demons watching a football replay on the television in the corner (a heavy and probably magically enhanced chain welded into the back of it secured it to the wall: this was a demon bar, after all). Marlon was drinking a vodka martini and Angel had been wondering if he genuinely liked the drink or was just getting his references mixed up.
In a bar where human blood was served on tap, he'd resisted cravings and made a mental note to come back very soon to check how they obtained their supplies.
Harry crunched loudly on a packet of peanuts in between bouts of glowering at Marlon.
"It's just that I never expected... I mean, vampires. Everyone knows you can't trust them, that they're touchy bastards - no offence. And you have one hell of a reputation, you know?"
"I know," Angel said.
"I thought you were going to come after us and kill us all. I was just buying us some time."
Angel nodded. Cordelia, he thought glumly, wasn't going to like the direction in which their negotiations were going. But Marlon was not evil. Angel had seen evil - he'd been the personification of it, at his worst, in the eyes of many - and Marlon was about as far removed from that as you could get, for a demon. Angel couldn't kill him. And while he might have doubts about the rest of the gang - a couple of those demon types just didn't come in the 'friendly' variety - he could already see that Marlon was loyal to them.
No, if he let Marlon go, then he would have to let all of them go. He could tell them not to start up their operation again, but he strongly suspected that at best all he would really be achieving was stalling them for a few months until they became established in a new home base.
He supposed that was something, at least. It would have to be enough. He wasn't an indiscriminate killer, and he knew not all victims necessarily had to be human, and not all humans were victims. In some cases the corporations they'd robbed were bigger crooks than the demons would ever be.
"I'm willing to agree to your plan," Angel said, eventually, "With one exception: your pickings go back to their rightful owners, as far as that's possible. And you go now or not at all. I am not going to give you time to move out all your stolen riches at a leisurely pace."
Marlon pulled a face. "How did I know you were going to say that?" he grumbled, sipping his martini. But he looked as though his enthusiasm for the venture had been severely drained. "Still, I suppose it's a better deal than you've given most who've crossed you." He looked at Harry. "I can't go through with my plans now. We need people like her on our side. I'm not going to jeopardise that."
Angel nodded, satisfied. "Then you'll take your people and go, and release Wesley and Doyle?"
"My choices seem limited," Marlon said dryly. "But I'm certainly not going to kill them in a petty fit of revenge and then have you redecorate the walls with my brains, so okay. Done."
Angel stood up. "Then we'll go get them now."
Nodding wordlessly, Marlon slowly got to his feet. Angel wondered if he was thinking of his gang's likely reactions to his failure.
"Hold on a moment," Harry said. Angel caught her shoulder as she zipped past him.
"But I just want to talk to-"
Angel shook his head, and Harry subsided with a huff of displeasure.
"One thing I can't help wondering, Marlon," Angel said, watching the demon draw his hat down and his collar up as they left the bar and re-entered human territory. "What is it with the outfit, and all the, um, arch-villain mannerisms?"
Marlon looked wistful, and shrugged uncomfortably inside his enormous coat. "Well, my ma had a TV, and I grew up watching all those movies. You know how it is: I always wanted to be the dashing hero." He grinned, and there was a certain bitterness in there as well as the wry humour. "Of course, looking like this, that was never really an option.
"But if not that, maybe I could at least be the perfect villain."
He drew his collar up higher, and sneered from the depths of it, striking a dramatic 'evil' pose. But it held even less conviction now, and Angel could tell his heart wasn't really in it anymore.
In expectation of teeth closing together through his neck, cutting through flesh and bone and cartilage and spinal cord, Doyle shut his eyes automatically. He tried to shut his nostril's too. Tony's breath smelled of rotting carcasses, mixed in with a faint hint of curry. Obviously the guy liked to round off his, uh, human meals with some takeout.
Seconds passed, and there was no pain, no final snap. He heard a grunt and the weight vanished from his back. He cautiously opened his eyes and turned around.
Wesley let go of the unconscious demon's arm, having obviously just dragged its weight from Doyle. The limb hit the floor with an audible slap. Wesley looked rather surprised at himself. He was holding a large broken tree branch and staring down at Tony's sprawled form with his mouth hanging open, jaw juddering occasionally as though he couldn't quite manage to get any words out.
Doyle struggled to his feet, feeling unsteady when he thought of just how close he'd come to death. He grabbed Wesley's arm, shaking him out of his daze. "Come on, man, we have to go. There are more of them, you kn-"
A loud bang cut him off. He spun around to find its source and froze.
Not twenty feet away, Hanley was heading for them at a run, one arm extended, the gun in his hand aimed unerringly upon the two of them. "Don't move!" the man snapped, loud enough to carry across the steadily closing space between them.
Doyle had heard that it was a bastard to shoot with any accuracy while running, however good the gunman, but Hanley was already too near. They might yet have another chance to get away without being killed: this wasn't it. He kept hold of Wesley's arm to stop him doing anything rash, but all the ex-Watcher actually did was stagger in his surprise and end up sitting down in the mud with his legs sprawled out in front of him ridiculously.
For once, Doyle couldn't blame him. Especially considering the guy had just saved his life. He felt guilty about his earlier suspicions that behind the 'rogue demon hunter' gaff Wesley was actually a bit chicken. Had to credit him with considerable guts to risk coming back to help somebody he didn't even like, in spite of the possibility - now the actuality - of recapture.
Close behind Hanley followed the other demon, and bringing up the rear, with the tissue still held up to his face and looking sorry for himself, was Gary.
"I think I'm gonna faint," moaned the latter as he drew to a halt, wavering unsteadily.
The others ignored him, their attention focused maliciously elsewhere. Doyle shakily noticed Tony dragging himself to his feet, looking extremely pissed off, and he backed off a step, convinced he was about to be shot or ripped apart by claws or teeth.
"What do we do with them now?" Hanley said.
Tony ignored him and walked past him to Wesley and Doyle. Doyle held his breath and tensed up in expectation of a blow. To his surprise, though, the demon also passed him by without a glance. The sense of relief he experienced lasted only an instant before he realised what Tony was going to do.
Which was to bring his clawed foot smashing down on Wesley's nearest outstretched ankle with a vengeful force.
There was no crack of breaking bone, although had the ground underfoot been solid concrete or flooring instead of mud and springy vegetation Doyle suspected there would have been. Wesley didn't scream, but from the expression on his face it rather looked like the reason for that was he'd swallowed his tongue. He choked for a minute, and barely seemed to have recovered his breath when Tony bent down, seized him by the throat and dragged him to his feet.
His stomped ankle gave way beneath him and he dangled by his neck.
"Hey! Let him- " Doyle lunged at Tony, only to be batted back by a casual swipe of a clawed hand. He fell against the other demon, who held him up by the back of his shirt.
"Let's get back inside," Tony said. "We can't kill them out here. If anyone heard the shots already fired, we'll have questions enough to answer."
"I have a gun license," Hanley said, aloofly. "And a well-respected public persona. I can tell them I was shooting at an intruder - or crows, if you like."
"That's real nice for you, but I don't want to take the risk of them finding blood traces out here if they check." He shook Wesley, who grunted and gesticulated desperately towards his throat, clearly in need of oxygen. "Guess you did me a favour, pal. I wasn't thinking straight. After all, why kill you two quick and messy now, when we can take the care to kill you slow and messy later?" He thought about it and switched his grip from Wesley's throat to his arm.
"Thank you!" Wesley wheezed, eliciting odd looks from all present.
"All right," Tony said to the others, "Let's get them back inside."
"Maybe we could talk about this?" Wesley suggested as he was dragged back through into the sitting room, angry and ashamed at the quiver he couldn't keep from his voice. His ankle hurt fiercely with every forced step. If the demons on either side of him let go, he knew he couldn't stay upright. "I mean, killing, that's a - very drastic solution, don't you think?"
"In case you haven't noticed," Tony said sarcastically, "We're demons. It's kind of the expected thing." He gestured to a large plush white armchair in a corner, and the demons holding Wesley flung him down into it. Gary, as soon as his hands were free, snatched desperately for a tissue and proceeded to have another sneezing fit.
"Sorry," he said, finally withdrawing the dripping tissue from his face.
Doyle, who looked pale and edgy entering the room herded at gunpoint in front of Hanley, smirked nonetheless and said, "You guys are really not very good at this, are you?"
"It's not our fault," Gary whined defensively. "Marlon was always the one who made the plans. He was good at plans." He looked upset.
The other three all glared at him. "How many times?" snapped Hanley. "You'd think the rest of us hadn't two brain cells to rub together, the way you talk. Shut the hell up about Marlon. We don't need him."
He and Tony exchanged slightly conspiratorial glances.
"He was always soft," Tony growled agreement. "Working out ways to do stuff without bloodshed." He made a disgusted noise. "Some of us like bloodshed."
"Right," clicked the remaining demon, and gave an awful high-pitched snicker that made Wesley's teeth reverberate.
Hanley was also nodding.
The three turned to their captives with contemplative looks on their faces.
Wesley looked at Doyle, whose smart mouth had started this, belligerently. "If it's not too much to ask, do you think you could possibly shut up?" he snapped. He was trying to remember quite why he had risked his neck to save this irritating individual not ten minutes since, and couldn't for the life of him think of a single good reason. It must have been the wine, he thought.
Doyle looked back at him expressionlessly. "It's not as if we've got a whole hell of a lot to lose," he said.
Wesley didn't need to be reminded that the demons proposed to kill them anyway. He recalled Doyle's earlier conviction that Angel would come to the rescue, and wondered where the vampire was now. Angel had to have dealt with Marlon, but the delay likely meant he hadn't been able to get enough information from the demon gang's leader about where they were being held.
He supposed Angel could still be on his way, and it was just a matter of trying to keep the demons from killing them before that happened, but as he'd told Doyle, he didn't have a lot of faith in the vampire.
On the whole, he rather agreed with Doyle's assessment. He leaned back into the white armchair, tightening his hands around its arms. If they were going to shoot him, he'd damn well make sure his blood ruined their upholstery.
There was the clicking noise of a door being unlocked. Six pairs of eyes fixed on the door leading into the hallway from where the noise had emanated.
"What the hell...?" Tony said. Hanley wordlessly moved forward with his gun, and stood against the door jamb, peering around the corner towards the main entrance.
The front door creaked as it swung open.
"Guys?" Wesley heard the familiar dry, clipped voice. Hanley came out from behind the door. "Ah. Mr. Hanley. I hope you people haven't done anything hasty in my absence?"
A second later, Marlon breezed into the room. He looked around, the shadows under the brim of his hat which marked his eyes taking in the situation. Wesley glared back into those shadows when they settled upon him. Had the fiend in fact dealt with Angel, and not the other way around as everyone had assumed? His slim hopes were fading until he remembered that Marlon, at least, hadn't planned upon killing them. He felt his glare transform itself into a slightly ingratiating smile, and then was cross at himself for the reaction.
The shadows moved on to study Doyle, and Marlon said, "Still mostly unharmed, I see. Good."
"Where've you been?" Tony's question was filled with unmistakeable hostility and no trace of relief at their leader's reappearance. "We thought you weren't coming back." Hanley and the other demon wore expressions of irritation mirroring his. Only Gary appeared pleased, a wide grin spreading across his features. Gary's grin wasn't too comforting from Wesley's point of view, crammed full as it was with rows of alligator-like teeth.
Marlon, clearly surprised by the hostile reception, said, "Guys, we need to move. Things have gotten a little more complex than we bargained for, here. New plan is, we quit town tonight. Now. With what we can carry in the van. Leave them here." He dismissively indicated Wesley and Doyle. "Come on, then. We've a lot to do."
Only Gary moved, and he froze again when he realised that nobody else had.
"What's the problem?" Wesley felt a pang of sympathy, watching the demon look around the group, in search of some indication of loyalty, and finding none. He knew what that felt like. One of the things Sunnydale had taught him. Marlon looked faintly embarrassed and slightly guarded - he looked very much as though there was something he was holding back, and Wesley could already tell that he was not going to be able to win them over. "We'll start over. We've done it once, we can do it again, right? And we've time to get some stuff. It's not like we'd be starting off with nothing, this time."
There was still no response, until Tony growled slowly, "We've made some decisions of our own, Marlon."
"We like it here," Mr. Hanley put in. "And we don't want to be driven out. Not by anyone. Not for anyone."
"And-we-like-bloodshed," added a final, clicking snarl.
"We don't need you," Tony said.
"We know you," Hanley said. "You've made some kind of a deal. You don't want these two dead, you'd rather we lost everything we've worked for than took a life."
"See, we always knew you'd be no good when it came to the crunch," Tony remarked casually. "You think too much, Marlon. That was always your problem. Your advantage, too, of course. It was why we let you lead us for so long. But I think that advantage has finally worn out." He flexed his claws as he spoke, his threatening intent unmistakeable. He took a step towards Marlon.
"Hey, cool it a minute." Gary stepped in his way, his expression aghast, inasmuch as a six-foot tall bipedal alligator could look aghast. "Can we talk about-"
Tony snarled impatiently and his arm whipped out almost faster than the eye could follow. Green blood arched across the room. It splattered Wesley in the face. Blinking, wiping the foul-smelling substance from his eyes, his vision cleared to show him Gary on the floor with a slice taken out of his throat, gurgling a final breath before rasping horribly and falling silent, his flailing limbs abruptly motionless.
Marlon was frozen still where he stood. It was impossible to see his facial expression, but shock lined every nuance of his posture.
"Time to clear away the dead weight," Tony said nastily.
He lunged at Marlon in almost the same instant Marlon lunged at him. Hanley raised the gun and tried to train it on his erstwhile leader, forgetting about Doyle, who took the opportunity to tackle him with a battle yell that sounded more frantic than furious. The other demon moved to help Tony. Wesley sprang up - to do quite what he wasn't sure - and fell immediately flat on his face as his injured ankle gave way.
Spitting blood and shreds of carpet, he raised his head from the floor in time to see Angel explode into the room through what was left of the French windows.
They'd agreed Marlon would go in first, to try to resolve things peacefully as he claimed he could do. Angel, who still professed doubts as to that being possible, would wait outside, and only interfere if things looked like turning nasty.
Well, thought Harry, the current situation could certainly be described as that. It looked like they'd arrived in the aftermath of some kind of break-out attempt. Marlon's gang seemed already riled up, and concern and fury rose in her when she saw the bruises on Francis' face. Hiding alongside Angel in the undergrowth outside the big French windows with their broken glass panes, she'd watched as, without warning, the yellow-skinned Trell demon killed the Kesh before anyone could so much as blink. For a moment, even Angel had been too shocked to move.
Then, growling "Stay here", he'd launched himself forward as just about everyone exploded into action at once.
Harry watched Angel join in the fight even as the Trell demon knocked Marlon across the room with a powerful backhand swipe: his back crashed against the frame of the French windows, sending a few remnant shards of glass scattering across the paving of the patio in front of her.
Another demon leaped onto Angel's shoulders as the vampire lashed out at the Trell, and the three of them quickly became a blur of fists and feet. Harry had never seen Angel fight before. It was an effort to tear her eyes away to see what else was happening-
Francis, fighting the human gunman for control of the weapon, already looked tired and battered and although his expression was determined he was obviously struggling to hold back his opponent. Almost close enough to her hiding place to reach out and touch, Marlon was trying to stand. His hat was gone and his collar askew to reveal a face finally stripped of pretence. Wesley Wyndham Pryce was in there too, sprawled on the floor and occasionally being trod on by the flurry of activity that was Angel and the two demons. He appeared to be desperately trying to crawl underneath a coffee table.
Angel's shoulder, she saw, dripped blood where the Trell's claws had caught him. He was losing and so, too, was Francis. Marlon and Wyndham Pryce were clearly incapacitated and unable to help.
"To heck with 'stay here'," Harry muttered decisively. She beat aside the branches that raked at her face and caught in her hair, picking her way out of the shrubbery, then through the sea of broken glass on the patio. She made a mental note to get some running shoes for the next time she decided to help Angel out, and wondered how Cordelia ever managed to fight evil in heels.
Although the room itself was large and grand, so much frenetic activity made it small. Harry had never been in a fight, and she was nervous of being hurt the minute her feet touched down on the carpet at the other side of the broken window, aware of how very close she was to flying fists and claws and feet.
She was peripherally aware of Marlon finally managing to stand and staggering over to help Angel, catching the Trell with a clumsy tackle which knocked him away from the vampire and sent them both sprawling across the floor until one of the white armchairs brought them up short. The chair knocked back against some bookshelves behind it, and books and ornaments rained onto them. Angel recovered himself and smashed the remaining demon into the wall with a snarl, and Harry was interested to see that his face had taken on its vampiric visage.
Her destination had anyway already been decided before Angel received help. Her instinct sent her straight to Francis.
She snatched up a glass decanter from the table - "No, Ms. Doyle, you must stay out of harm's way!" spluttered Wyndham Pryce, whom she ignored, from underneath it - and brought it crashing down on the gunman's head.
It didn't quite have the effect she'd been aiming for - the movie effect where the guy's eyes crossed and he dropped to the floor like a stone - but it did daze him enough that he stopped using Francis as a punchbag for an instant and staggered slightly.
He didn't, however, loose his grip on the gun, which remained locked between his hand and Francis'.
Harry shrieked and dropped the decanter as he angrily turned on her.
Francis saw her over the gunman's shoulder and his eyes widened. "What're you doin' here?" he yelped.
"Saving your butt!" Harry snapped - and tried to back out of reach as the gunman lashed out with his free hand and his fingers tightened in the collar of her shirt. "Francis!"
Francis renewed his attack on the guy as though he'd suddenly been granted superpowers, surging forward, his weight peeling the gunman's hand from her and dragging both men to the floor. Two loud bangs split the air. Harry backed away, afraid of the gun still clutched in both their outstretched hands. She tracked its aim and was relieved to see it hadn't damaged anything more than plaster.
Another bang, and another chunk of plaster fell from the wall perilously close to Angel and Marlon. Watching them, even she could tell Marlon wasn't much of a fighter, but his efforts were providing a distraction to allow Angel to handle the other demon.
The gun fired again and Marlon fell. He hit the ground, the shoulder of his coat already stained red.
Harry took a breath, drew back her foot, and stomped down on the two outstretched wrists on the ground in front of her.
The gunman screamed. "Argh, you bitch!"
Francis choked out more or less the same thing.
She kicked the gun they'd loosed out of reach, not wanting to risk the wrong person regaining it. It slid across the floor in front of Wesley Wyndham Pryce, whose eyes widened. He started crawling after it.
Spitting curses, the gunman lunged at Harry's ankles, pulling her to the floor. Her arms caught the coffee table behind her and she held herself half-upright, flailing with one hand for something - anything - she could use as a weapon, while with the other she tried to support her weight against his efforts to drag her down the rest of the way.
But she didn't need to worry. Francis clouted the guy at the base of his skull with a vicious jab of an elbow, and the blow had the effect she'd hoped her decanter would.
"Bastard," Francis said. He looked up at her aggrievedly. "What the hell was that for, anyway?"
"I'm sorry," she said, wincing. "I couldn't hit him without hitting you, and the gun..." She abruptly remembered the event which had prompted her urgent action. "Marlon!" She grabbed her ex's arm, hauling him to his feet. "Help me help him, Francis."
Marlon was slumped against the wall, awkwardly trying to stand using the wall for support but each time failing and sliding down it again, new blood all the time adding to the red patch on his coat's shoulder. There was a long streak of red visible on the magnolia-painted surface of the wall.
He was worryingly close to where the remaining demons were now concentrating their attack on Angel. It would be a matter of ease for either of them to slash out with their claws and tear his throat out while he was helpless.
"Help him?" Francis repeated. "I thought he was the bad guy. I mean, didn't you notice his dress sense, for a start?"
Harry glared. "Don't argue with me, Francis."
Sweeping a kick towards the ankles of the demon on his right; ducking underneath a vicious, clawed slash from the one in front; coming back around just in time to avoid the retaliation of the first demon, who'd evaded the kick - an open-palmed jab backed by a handful of six-inch claws which would have opened up his midriff as effectively as a handful of knives had the blow landed - Angel swayed in the rhythm of the fight.
The two demons were tough, brutal fighters, naturally savage. Apparently Marlon's leadership had kept them on a short reign, and only now were they finally having chance to vent.
He was uncomfortably aware of how much he was fighting on the defensive: that he would never beat them like this. But they were clearly accustomed to working together, forged as a team under Marlon's leadership, and together they were relentless.
He was worried about Marlon, who had helped them even as his allies abandoned him, and who now bled steadily onto the carpet for his troubles. He was also less than happy that Harry had followed him into the middle of the fight. But he was grateful nonetheless as, between ducking and weaving, punches and kicks, he caught skewed glimpses of Harry and Doyle darting through an opening in the combat to grab Marlon and drag him out of harm's way into a corner, where Harry tore off her jacket and pressed it against the gunshot wound to stem the blood flow.
Angel fluffed a block and the yellow-skinned Trell's claws tore a line of agony across his chest. He resisted the impulse to look down, but knew the cut was deep. Could already feel blood trickling down between shirt and skin, gumming cloth to flesh. The Trell snarled in satisfaction, the edges of its mouth curling up in a nasty grin.
Pre-warned by that and by his own instincts, Angel whipped around an arm to block a slash at his neck from the other demon. The next few minutes disappeared into a continuous blur of violent activity as both demons pressed the attack harder, encouraged by their success. Angel picked up a myriad of smaller injuries, and dealt out but a few in return.
Behind the Trell, Doyle was hovering with a large ornamental vase nervously poised in his hands. But the opening he was waiting for refused to present itself. He kept darting forward and then faltering and dropping back as the combatants moved too quickly once again. The cramped space and the hampering furniture worked against him.
It went on like that until a clawed hand broke through Angel's defence in a quick stab towards his throat.
Angel tried to duck, knowing that, even as fast as he was, he wasn't going to be fast enough. Knowing, also, that Doyle could do nothing, and everyone else was too far away. And that if he was killed or crippled severely enough that he couldn't fight, then those remaining wouldn't stand a chance.
A shot rang out, and the demon collapsed. Its claws drew four superficial scratches across Angel's throat on the way down.
Angel looked across the room to see Wesley Wyndham Pryce crouched on the floor, with Hanley's gun clutched white-knuckled in his outstretched hand.
Wesley pulled the trigger. The demon fell and Angel turned to stare at him in incredulity in the instant before Tony snarled and hurled himself at the vampire in fury. As the pair resumed their altercation, and Doyle too threw himself into the fray, Wesley was horrified to see the demon he'd shot staggering back upright and lurching towards him with its already ugly features twisted even more gruesomely in its dying anger. And there was no doubt it was dying. The wound in its neck was pouring orange blood at a sickening rate, it was just taking its time to kill. Leaving the demon with enough life to make sure it put an end to Wesley's.
Wesley tightened his finger on the trigger again and... nothing.
Again. Nothing but a dull click. Again.
Click.
The damned, sodding, useless, bloody gun was out of bullets...
He threw the gun aside and looked around for anything he might use as a weapon. The decanter Harry had used earlier lay on the floor some feet away, stubbornly unbroken although it had a hair-thin crack running down one side. He lunged for it but came up short by inches, and then it was too late. The demon was upon him, seizing him by the throat, dripping orange blood onto his suit.
The world began to gray, his awareness of it limited to the pressure on his throat as the demon's hands squeezed and its claws dug into the back of its neck. Wesley's life flashed before his eyes. A life of failures: his father's disapproval, Buffy and her friends' scorn, the Watchers Council as they fired him, Faith-
It was no wonder none of them wanted him around, he thought bitterly. He'd made such a mess of everything. It occurred to him with no small amount of sour irony that now he was about to die as a consequence of saving a vampire. Couldn't even do death right.
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry... He focused on the thought like a mantra. Faith. His Father. Buffy. The Council. The people he'd never now have a chance to make up for failing.
Someone ripped the demon away from him with a snarl of fury, and his vision cleared slightly as Angel hurled the creature against the wall. It hit the wall, hit the ground, and lay still.
"Th-thank you!" Wesley stammered, too grateful at that moment to resent being saved by a vampire, or even to find that strange in any way. But Angel didn't even seem to hear him. He turned his attention back to Tony and so did Wesley - in time to see Doyle reeling away from the Trell and crashing into Harry and Marlon where they huddled in the corner.
Harry pulled Doyle back down as the half-demon tried to return to the fight and Wesley heard her say, "Hush. Angel has it."
Angel did indeed have it. Wesley crawled awkwardly over to join the others as the vampire ended the fight with a decisive twist of Tony's neck.
"Well, I'm glad that's over," Doyle said raggedly.
Wesley remained too breathless with his astonishment at still being alive to speak. Wordlessly, he looked around the group. Ms. Doyle with her frizzy hair all askew and her face flushed with exertion (he found it hard to look away from her, having to fight his eyes' temptation to linger); Doyle, breathing hard, looking battered and swaying from exhaustion and lingering alcohol as he climbed to his feet to help Angel; Angel, staggering and bleeding, leaning against the shoulder Doyle offered for support.
Then there was Marlon, the demon who'd caused his recent ordeal, whom Wesley didn't know what to make of at all. He'd helped them during the fight, and Harry had helped him back, had seemed to regard him as an ally. Marlon was now half unconscious.
Harry looked up from attending to the demon's injury, and her eyes went straight to Angel. There was no doubt who was the leader here. She said, "We need to clean and bind the injury. I don't suppose we can take him to a hospital for proper medical attention."
Angel nodded and, leaving Doyle's support, dragged himself off out of the room, returning a moment later to offer Harry household antiseptic and bandages from the hands that not long before had been used to crush flesh and bone.
Wesley felt somewhat foolish for his earlier suspicion and lack of faith. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, drawing the vampire's attention, and said awkwardly, "You saved my life..."
"I'd do the same for anyone," Angel cut in. He turned away to exchange words with Doyle, his demeanour weary. "Doyle. It's good you're okay," he said, cracking what might, by Angel-definitions, have actually been a smile, although on most people it would have better qualified as a small muscle-twitch.
Doyle looked past him to meet Wesley's eyes. Wesley was painfully trying to manoeuvre himself upright, with intent to make a quiet retreat from that place while nobody's attention was upon him. After all, it was clear he wasn't wanted here, either. He really should be getting used to the feeling, by now.
He pushed off from the wall, and tried not to fall flat on his face and turn a dignified exit into yet another personal farce as he headed for the door.
"He saved my life," he heard Doyle say, loudly, to Angel.
Wesley hesitated, and turned back.
Harry looked mildly surprised. Doyle looked determined. Angel didn't particularly look anything.
"I was thinkin', you know, maybe we could use havin' the services of a demon-hunter on call, right?"
Angel looked between them, considering his cohort's words behind a vague amusement and surprise. "The guy is good with the books," he said. He frowned at Wesley. "You staying in LA?"
He didn't have to think about it for very long before he nodded.
"Good." Angel nodded back. "That's good. Thanks for the help, then, Wesley. We'll be in touch if we could use your services again. So... we'll see you around. Right?"
"Oh, I should think so," Wesley said, dredging up all he could muster of his carefully constructed Rogue Demon Hunter persona for the occasion. "As you know, a rogue demon hunter gets around. Yes, I do imagine we shall meet up again. And yes, I think I should be quite pleased to help out. Delighted to, in fact. Vanquishing evil and fighting the good fight... a wa- a rogue demon hunter's work is never done."
"Right." Doyle rolled his eyes and looked as though he was regretting having spoken up.
"Farewell for now, then," Wesley said, beaming and trying not to fall over as he tripped his way backwards to the door. "Comrades..."
He'd reached the front door by the time the yell drifted after him, echoing slightly in the vast hallway of the grand house, "But don't think for one minute that this means I like you - you pompous, irritatin', English ponce!"
