Title: The Borogoves

Chapter 9: The Last of the Wyndam-Pryces

Rating: R for language/themes

Disclaimers: These characters aren't mine, and for that matter, the last line is pretty much W.H. Auden's.

Thanks: to inlovewithnight and stoney321 for reading, and noticing things like inappropriate contractions.

The Last of the Wyndam-Pryces

Wesley put a hand to his bleeding lip, cringed instinctively, and murmured, "I'm sorry." Instantly, he hated his body for that reaction, pulled himself tall, and lunged to grab Roger by the shoulder. "No! I'm not sorry and you – you don't get to do that to me anymore."

His Father did not flinch, only cast his eyes curiously to where Wesley's hand rested on his coat sleeve. After a long moment, Roger spoke, calmly and evenly. "Why?"

"Why?" Wesley repeated. He forced his body to relax and released the old man's arm. He hated the petulance in his own voice as he spoke. "Because I'm not a child."

"Come son," said Roger. He backed away and sank again into his chair. "You can do better than that."

Wesley stared at him, shocked by the sudden calmness, unable even to formulate a question.

"Give me a better reason why I don't get to do such a thing to you."

Wesley shook his head and sank into his own chair. "I'm so tired of these games."

"I'll help you." Roger put on a voice that was an eerie imitation of his son's and said, "I'm not a child, Father, I'm a man. I'm a powerful man. I have forces at my beck and call that you couldn't begin to imagine. When I was a Watcher, Father, I had to work in the darkness, keep secrets, pose as an assistant school librarian, or some disgraceful bloody thing. But this time, Father, when I returned to England in my triumph, I wasn't even required to go through customs. I flashed my pretty little business card, and someone's eyes got big, and she said, 'I'm sorry, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, it won't happen again.' Because I work with real power now, Father. I could snap my fingers and anyone I please could have a knife through his gut before the echo died. And what do you have, Father, you and your Council? Nothing but a bunch of little girls who won't even listen to you anymore."

"Is that what you think of me, then?" Wesley asked. "That I've turned into a petty little tyrant? That I would sustain my position on a foundation of violence and threats?"

"I don't know how much it matters that you would. Right now, you probably think you wouldn't, because you don't particularly feel the need. It matters that you could, and anything a man can do is a thing he will do, for the right price. For the right person." He shook his head. "Power corrupts, Wesley. The axiom exists for a reason."

"Yes," Wesley answered slowly, "For a reason. Because it's a thing that people who have power can say to people who don't, to keep them in their place. I'm through with axioms. Corruption corrupts, Father, and anything else people say about power, they say to rationalize any damn thing they always wanted to do, but couldn't, until they had the power to do it."

Roger banged the table until the bottles jumped. "Then Wolfram and Hart's power is corrupt at the core. It comes from a place of evil. You cannot make a deal with those forces and expect to walk away."

"And who says that I plan to walk away?" Wesley answered, his voice rising with his emotions. "Why would I? There are two kinds of power. Power that we use, and power that is used against us. Power that is used righteously and power that is used to subdue, to intimidate, to conceal the truth. This I know. And yes, now I've been given some power, for once, some real power. I don't pretend to understand the reason, and I don't pretend to know the purpose. The very fact that I have it is the best evidence I've encountered so far that the forces governing the universe are fundamentally insane."

Wesley paced and turned, looked at the ceiling for a moment, then turned to face his father with greater force. "But I hold it," he continued. "It is mine to use. And if I don't use it, someone else will. And if we – if Angel and I, all of us – had turned down this opportunity because of some copybook garbage about power and corruption, then there would be blood on our hands. I cannot see it any other way, and believe me, I have tried. We took what we are offered and we are using it, Father. We are trying to do a good thing. And we may very well fail. We may die in the attempt, but if we do, it will be because we lack the strength. It will not be because we lack the will." Wesley let out a ragged breath, felt the heat of blood that had risen to his face, and listened to the silence that hung for a long moment between them.

Roger blinked and said, "I'm sorry. Were you finished?"

"Yes, I. . ." He wiped some sweat that was beading on his forehead. "I believe that I've made my point.

The last reaction Wesley expected was a laugh of genuine amusement. But he should have learned by now to stop expecting things. "Splendid," Roger laughed. "That was absolutely splendid. And I suppose I was wrong about you. It is the blonde one you're in love with after all."

"Who?"

"The Summers girl. Betty or whatever her silly name is."

"I'm sure I don't know how that follows. I haven't seen Buffy in years."

"Perhaps you should give her a call then, amuse each other with your speeches. Because you sound exactly like her. She was through here a few months ago, asking for an audience with all the old Watchers. She and Faith and Rupert Giles, plus that redheaded witch – you know, the little Jew-dyke." He looked at Wesley, obviously hoping for a response, but Wesley just shook his head; the cheap shot wasn't even worthy of Roger and they both knew it. "She went on all morning about shifts of power, and seizing the day and – I hardly even remember, it was all I could do not to stab myself in the arm with a fountain pen to make sure I was awake. She was asking something from the Council, talking about the start of a new order, the power moving from the Watchers to the Slayers. Because, just like you, she had forgotten a single essential fact." He let the silence hang there, until Wesley had to fill it.

"And just what have Buffy and I forgotten?"

"Each of you is so busy railing against the Council, shaking your fists at the gods about the way we have been doing everything wrong. And in your railing, you have forgotten a small but fundamental detail." Still lost, Wesley shook his head. "About the Council," Roger prompted. "A very good reason that you are wasting your time being angry at the Council."

"I think I have spent a good part of my adult life learning to understand the failings of the Council. I think getting fired by the Council was the best thing that ever happened to me, and that Buffy's standing up to the Council was the best thing that ever happened to the calling of the Slayer. And tonight I have learned a few things that help me to understand more thoroughly than I ever could before, exactly what a corrupt body the Council is and has always been. So what am I missing?"

"Wesley," he shook his head. "Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, there always has been something a bit charming in your bullheadedness. So we shall stop the guessing game, and I shall remind you of the thing that you are determined to forget." Leaning close over the table, he whispered, "There is no Council. A mad preacher with some plastic explosives saw to that. Summers and Rosenberg's little coup d'etat took care of the rest."

"But my sources tell me the Council is reassembling."

"Your sources," Roger repeated. "And what would those be? Some crude cyborg with my face?" He shook his head. "Your sources could not be more wrong. Neither what remains of the Council nor I had anything to do with that attack. You should have grasped that we would never try to use the vampire to our own ends. That would make us as bad as your friends at Wolfram. But I have my sources as well. And honestly -- six shots straight to the heart? Without a moment's hesitation? I stood no chance, did I?"

"You knew," Wesley stammered, and the old sickness rose in his throat. "You've let me sit here all this time and you knew."

"That you were willing to shoot your own father to protect a damsel in distress? Oh, wipe that look off your face. And please don't get sick in here, you have already done enough damage to my carpet. I have never been prouder of you in my life than when I heard you got those shots off. What I am still not entirely certain of, is whether you came here to apologize, or to finish the job."

"And does that frighten you?"

"No," Roger shook his head. "In this place, at this moment, it does not. Because you have nothing to gain by killing me. And you could not make it fit into the view you cling to of yourself as a righteous man. But you do frighten me." He glanced at Wesley. "Does that please you? It is better to be feared than to be loved, I believe, is where your friend Machiavelli finally came down on that question."

"I suppose," Wesley answered weakly, "that it is better than nothing. But please, Father, do tell. How do I manage to frighten you?"

"When you were a boy," he answered. "You got into the books, do you remember? You thought you could impress your friends – such as they were – or make your mother a present or some nonsense."

"I was nine," said Wesley. "And it was supposed to be a gift for you, as I'm sure that you well know."

"You conjured up a Questing Beast," Roger continued. "The beast knocked over the toolshed, ate a half dozen sheep, and required some creative explanation to the constabulary enquiry." He leveled a stern, half-mocking finger at his son. "You very nearly caused half of my library to be confiscated. I see from that pained expression on your face that you remember quite well."

"I mostly remember the thrashing and the not being able to sit down for three days. Actually. But thank you for bringing it up." He raised an eyebrow. "And that's what frightens you? That I'll remember old grievances and take some kind of petty revenge?"

"It frightens me that someone took the boy who did something so foolish, and gave him the keys to the bloody kingdom."

"That. . ." Wesley stammered. "That doesn't even make any sense. You're talking about something that happened when I was nine years old. It has nothing to do with the man I am."

"Please, son. 'The child is father to the man.' Wordsworth spewed a lot of sentimental rubbish, but he had that one on the nose. And I don't mean only you, son. I mean all of us. We inhabit dangerous times. And in such times, all of us hide from the people who know us best. . . Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood. Children afraid of the night, Who have never been happy or good."

"Oh, it's Auden we're abusing now? The more brilliant men you choose to quote, Father, the more nonsense I can tell that you're talking."

"Dangerous tims," he repeated. "And all of us are children. Every son feels it, every son tries to keep the secret to himself. Every son hates his father, for how well that one man knows the truth. And every father fears his son, because only the father can know what a reckless and desperate child he has unleashed on the world."

"I refuse to accept that," said Wesley. "There are sons and fathers who value each other, who support each other. . ."

"Do you know any?" Roger countered. "No need to answer, because if you think you do, all you know is a gang of liars. Every father fears the things his son can do. Shakespeare knew it before Freud, and Sophocles knew it before any of them. Of course I fear a world that gives my son power, just as the Watchers fear a world run by the Slayers. Although that, I think, is an experiment that will run its course in time. Much like Communism. I only hope I do not live to see the end of it. I am not certain, in fact, that any human will. Live, I mean."

"I have to have more hope than that."

"Please do," Roger answered. "Hope, by all means. Why should you not? This is the world you wanted. Power in the hands of the warriors on the front, and no one to hold the line if they fail. Traditions of millennia stripped, stampeded, thrown by the wayside. And me, an old man, locked here in my library. No longer a threat to you. No longer telling you what to do. You are a man, Wesley, as you keep insisting that I acknowledge. You have the power and I do not. I only ask that you give me the illusion of this last bit of power, over my own home. Finish your drink, stay the night. Get up tomorrow; make your peace with your mother. Then leave this place, and never darken my door again. From this night on, you have no father, and I have no son."

"I. . ." Wesley stammered.

"Is this not what you wanted? What the Americans amusingly choose to call closure? I believe things are as closed as they have ever been between us." He rose from his chair, and stepped over the shattered bottle of Scotch. "Don't bother with that, I'll have Ashoka clean up your mess. I am going to bed, and in the morning I have business in London. I trust that you will be gone when I get back." He stopped and tilted his head at Wesley. "Tell me this is not what you want."

"No," Wesley said quietly. "I mean, yes. I think you're right. I think it is best. I came here believing that we might be able to find some common ground, but . . ."

"No you didn't," Roger answered. "You came here to throw everything you are, and everything you have become, into my face. To convince yourself you were right to shoot me when you had the chance. And now you see an old man who poses not the smallest threat to anyone. You see that you are young and strong, and you have the world on a string. You have beaten me. . You are, as I believe you Americans like to say, the man. And I have told you, Wesley, why that frightens me. And so you must now ask one last thing of yourself. Why, exactly, does it frighten you?"

And Wesley had no answer. And then the man was gone.

So his son knelt on the floor, amid the shards of the shattered liquor bottle. And they cut into his knees, but he pressed down harder. He lifted the pieces of glass, pressed his hands tight around them, and brought the damaged flesh to his face. The pungence of aged Scotch mingled with the sharp metal scent of blood, and he knew that his father was right, about one final matter, if no other. Because Wesley at this moment knew the truth, a truth that he would spend the next weeks and months struggling to forget. That he would indeed be the last of the Wyndam-Pryces. And that he would not live long.

THE END

Like Roger Wyndam-Pryce, I tend to abuse a lot of brilliant men when I'm desperate. The first Auden quote ("children afraid of the night") is from "September 1, 1939"; the last sentence shamelessly rips off the ending of "The Shield of Achilles."