Allegiances
"Who the hell are you and where do you think you're going?"
Spike tensed as the familiar voice of Gunn challenged Xander.
"Name's Xander, you might've heard of me, or maybe not any ways I'm leaving now, with Spike. I'll be back later, now if you'll excuse us…"
"Look bubba, your name's familiar, but the boss man's got orders on the bleach blonde."
"Yes."
Xander's voice was eerily calm, something that would have been a warning for wiser men or those who'd faced him before.
"I heard about that. Angel's been overruled though; don't worry about it I'll talk to him later, we'll work this all out. Now, excuse us."
The last line was unmistakably an order and Xander neatly sidestepped the black man to continue on his way when he was grabbed. A swoosh of movement in the air and the assaulter was down on the floor.
"Hey!"
The voice of a woman sounded higher than normal in the silence that followed.
"Fred." Spike said low as an explanation for Xander.
"Figured with the red hair, she hostile?"
"I think she likes me, but she's loyal."
Xander sighed.
"I'd rather not hurt them. Where's Wes?"
The name called Gunn answered that question with a yell.
"Wes, get your ass out here!"
"Good man," Xander said as he released the man and let him stand up under careful watch.
"What in the world is going on out here?"
The British man's voice sounded indignant and Xander couldn't help but smile at the changes
shown in the older man.
"Hey Wes. Sorry about the noise, I'm just here to get Spike. If you could get your friends to back off I think we'll all be so much happier."
Wes blinked once at the veiled threat, but then did as Xander expected of him. That is the opposite of what he was sure that everyone else were expecting.
"Yes, right. Gunn, Fred, do be kind enough and step down. Mr. Harris is showing great patience with this whole affair, but we wouldn't want to aggravate him any further I'm sure."
"Wes?"
Gunn's voice sounded unsure.
"What's going on?"
"I do say that is quite obvious. Mr. Harris has come to gather Spike to do whatever it is that he might be needed for and we are going back to our business."
"But Angel?"
Wesley raised an eyebrow.
"I'm sure that Angel will get an explanation in due time, now if you would please let the
gentlemen be on their way?"
"You sure about this Wesley?"
Fred's voice was lower now and sounded cultured. She really was Willowy like, hopefully not in regards to ending the world and such matters though.
"Yes, yes. Quite sure. Now do go on you two, there is work to be done after all."
"Of course."
"Yeah, sure thing Wes."
Gunn threw one last dark look at Xander before leaving; the redhead paused for a second though.
"Spike, you okay?"
"I'll be fine, pet. This here's an old mate of mine, nothing to worry about."
"Alright then. I'll see you?"
"Sure thing, pet. Now off you go."
"'K."
Xander felt a smile tugg on his lips as he watched the small girl turn around and head back to wherever she had come from.
"Thanks Wes, we'll be heading out now, I'll be back to sort things out later."
"Think nothing of it, I think I'll accompany you out though and maybe stay out until you've had your little talk."
"That bad huh," Xander said as they all headed for the elevators.
"Well, he hasn't tried to kill me this year, but one should never take unnecessary risks…"
"Kill you? Wesley, what the hell!"
Xander's voice was unmistakeably angry now.
"Not now, Xan, can we get out of here first."
"Fine." Xander grated out through clenched jaws. "But then, we're having a long talk mister."
"Yes I imagine we will…" Wesley's voice was resigned.
Bloody hell man, when will you learn to keep your trap closed.
"Well that was another useless night of being ignored and treading the bloody line. Cheers Wes, you might as well be Travers' goon for real for all the good you do those people."
"Hey Watcher man."
The voice was soft so as not to scare, but Wesley still jumped slightly, he'd been sure there was no one left in the library. He turned around and groaned inwardly at the sight that met him. It was that Xander boy, wonderful. The only person in the group that made him more uncomfortable than a 'Ripper' reformed.
"Mr. Harris, is there something I can do for you?"
The boy was sitting on the stairs toying with a cross that Wesley had never seen before. It was a black cross in stone or crystal, possibly obsidian. His expression was serious and his posture seemed relaxed but in a way that a cat might be relaxed, ready to spring at the slightest hint of danger. It was a posture completely at odds with the boy's usual behaviour something that made the warning bells in Wesley's head sound.
"Actually, that will hopefully be a mutual deal."
Xander rose languidly from the stair and proceeded to one of the bookshelves in the library where he removed some books to get at something in the back of the shelf. Opting to remain where he stood for the time being Wesley's right hand travelled behind his back to finger one of the throwing knives that he had hidden there. However the boy had not produced a weapon, simply a book which he brought to the 'research table'.
"You know, Wes, I'm actually quite adept at recognizing masks, I guess you could call it a survival instinct of sorts. Living on the Hellmouth, things are seldom what they appear, so you have to look for what does not appear, but simply exists. I can sense power in you Wes and sometimes I find myself seeing more in you than what you show. It intrigues me and worries me and I want to know what it means. But mostly I want to know one thing; are you a threat to me and mine Wes?"
Wesley stared and felt his mind swirling with new possibilities. That little speech had not held much information really, but that it was made at all and in this way was what gave the information away. There were two conclusions he could come to either Xander Harris was not what he appeared to be or he was not Xander Harris period.
"Yes, you must indeed know a great deal of masks, seeing how you seem to have changed your entire personality tonight Mr. Harris."
There was a soft laugh as the young man seated himself on a chair.
"And ain't that the truth. Have a seat Wes, talk to me, you can keep one hand behind your back if you like. Personally I find it rude to show such little trust, then again, I guess you could call me biased."
Xander or whoever he was grinned and a chair was pushed out on the opposite side of the young man, definitely not a boy this one, whatever else he might be. Wesley only hesitated for a moment before he removed his hand from behind his back and went to have a seat. That was the beginning of a very strange night and the start of what would become one of his most important friendships to date.
As the doors on the elevator closed Xander caught a glimpse of the dark avenger himself standing calmly outside of his office, boring holes into the sliding elevator doors. So he wasn't going to challenge him just yet, that was good. Xander would rather not have this done with Spike still present in the building, the blonde vampire needed rest in a safe environment and to be able to just be for a while. And of course the power in Xander's blood was quite substantial, but Spike was still malnourished though not as much so. Feeding him in that manner had worked even better had he been a sire or a claimant, however, as always it was not the physical that needed nourishment with Spike as much as the emotional. The blonde was so much more fragile than most people would think, though he was damned strong too considering the life he'd led and gotten through still halfway sane. Xander smiled sadly at the all too familiar thought as they headed out of the elevators and went to grab a taxi outside.
At the Plaza Hotel Xander gently ushered Spike to the adjacent room in his very expensive suite, well a suite that would have been very expensive had not Xander lived there for free courtesy of Methos, the hotel owner's silent partner. It beat the Watcher Council's single bedroom any day of the week.
"That's your room for however long we stay here Spike, there's some heated blood ready for you in a thermos and the jacuzzi's got your favourite bath oil, go luxuriate or whatever just remember that the windows aren't sun proof. Sorry, but I don't have the formula for that, yet. Me and Wesley will be down at the restaurant and then I'm heading over for WolframHart again. Your key is on the bureau in your room so is a credit card and a cell phone, my number is on speed dial one. Anything you want before we head out?"
Spike who had been busy checking out the advanced entertainment system of the main room looked up with a distracted face.
"Huh? No, that's fine Xan, thank you. Go on a head now, I think I'll be able to find me some amusement…"
Xander chuckled.
"I'm sure. I'll see you later."
"Uh hu, see ya Xan."
Smiling amusedly Xander gestured to Wesley and the two of them headed off to talk and to relax a bit before the upcoming confrontation.
"I feel I should offer my apologies about Spike first off to you Alexander. I did not know that he was one of yours, but I'm afraid that might not excuse my actions or rather lack of action in this matter. I have noticed for some time that Angel has been a bit, off, if you so will and given my past as a Watcher I should have watched more closely what was really going on."
"It's not my place to forgive you Wesley and at any rate we all make mistakes. You told me eventually about his return, late is better than never, I would have thought that you regarded me in a higher opinion than to keep such secrets from, but I can understand why you chose silence for so long."
His voice was low and spoken in a bland tone, though not furious or unsympathetic towards the other man Xander was still not pleased and he needed that fact to be known.
Wesley looked down at the pint of beer in his hand and sighed.
"I know he was with you all in Sunnydale, know you would have wanted to know about him being back no matter if he was your friend or not, but I rationalized. I figured it wasn't that important, you were probably just relieved to be rid of him anyway and I, I needed to be firmly with Angel on this. It wasn't that I sided with him against you, you understand, I would never do that, but I… You know I just… Oh bloody hell Xan, I don't know, it's just I've built a life here and I've fought together with these people for years and when Angel told me that Spike was a threat I had to take his word on it. We've been a team for so long and I… I just can't conceive of him not being who I thought he was, I betrayed him once before, I couldn't face it again. I know he's not turned into Angelus, at least I'm mostly sure of it. I doubt that Angelus could keep up such a charade at helping people and you know, being broody. So I want to trust him, I want this to be real… And I'm not putting this very eloquently, am I? What I want to say is that I am sorry and I can only promise that I will try to do better."
After that speech Wesley went quiet and gazed down once more while Xander sighed inwardly. Well wasn't this just fucking great. He lived his life in the shadows, secrets and lies were some of his tools for keeping the world safe and that sometimes meant that shit happened.
"I understand Wesley. Really, I do. A team is a team and you deserve to be apart of one, but Angel's not in a good place and from what I have gathered, he hasn't been for quiet some time."
Actually, Angel had not always been all there even back in Sunnydale, but things had definitely gotten worse if what Spike told him was anything to go by. Of course his behaviour towards his childe could just be family issues, but Xander doubted that and from what he had heard, so did Lorne and being who he was, Lorne was definitely trustworthy.
"You have got to accept that if you want to be able to help him and the world. As for no rationalization, we all do it from time to time, I wish my trust was worth more to you, but really, I had no reason to expect that after all this time."
Wesley closed his eyes in pain at hearing those words spoken so matter of factly. He felt the impact of every one of them as if they were knives, slashing him deeply with every syllable spoken. Ah, sweet mother of Christ, he really was a turncoat, a fucking coward, all these years fighting, thinking that he was changing, growing as a person he had actually been spiralling downwards slowly until he had become the man the slayer gang of Sunnydale had once thought him to be. Everyone, but Xander that is.
"Come on Wes, you're really starting to get the hang of it. One more holding pattern and we'll go to weapons next."
"Fuck you, you bloody slavedriver. I've been tossed on my ass so many times today my buns are burning hot enough to steak some eggs on them! Let's get some knife throwing practice done instead, at least there I can give you a run for your money."
Wesley's voice was strained and he felt extremely irritated. This wasn't what he did. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce didn't do this sort of hand to hand or melee. He did knife throwing, magic and shooting, crossbows or guns, he did not get up and close to the people or creatures he was fighting. That wasn't how he'd been trained, sure, he knew the basics, but that wasn't what they wanted him for. To the Watcher Council Wesley was a chameleon, a spy. He'd tried to get away from that, tried to work harder as to be regarded as an actual watcher, but they didn't want him as such. Or rather Quentin bloody Travers didn't want him to be that, didn't want him to be anyone that might be regarded with any sort of respect by the Watcher's society, Wesley was to close to the throne for comfort, his father having been the former head of the Council before his untimely death, probably by treachery, but that would of course never be proven.
Anyways, so Wesley had of course had the usual Watcher training, but not so much with the fighting part, apparently he was more 'suited' to take care of 'important matters' that didn't include actually teaching slayers to survive, rather work as a spy or well, yeah so this was he first actual spy job, but still it was bloody annoying that the only way he could get even close to working the field was by working as a watcher for a slayer but also doubling as a spy for Travers… And tripling for his own agenda of course which consisted of actually trying to make sure that the Hellmouth's protectors could work in peace. That meant of course that he had to alternate between playing at being Travers faithful little lapdog and actually trying to help out in the shadows as much as he could. His biggest job was to make sure that Travers didn't catch on to how much of what was happening here that Wesley didn't report. Oh, yes and of course staying alive himself was quite high up there too. Ouch, bloody hell, that hurt!
"Wesley! Are you okay? Where the hell were you, I could have seriously hurt you then if I hadn't managed to switch in the last second. Jesus."
Wesley groaned. This was so unfair, that boy didn't have to learn this stuff. He just had it in his head. Pre-packaged as it were. All right, so that wasn't exactly fair, there was a difference between actually knowing to how fight and knowing how to fight. Xander had explained the difference to him during that long conversation they'd had in the library that first night of laying down masks.
"I must say this is simply fascinating. So you have been possessed by a primal spirit that you have managed to cage in your mind. You have the memories of an alternate you who were a special operations soldier and died at the age of 34. This in and of itself is remarkable, but what I find most impressive is your mental shielding, I could sense nothing magical or strange about you at any time, well almost. Now that I think on it, this must be the reason that I have felt so uneasy being around you at times. Perhaps you have let something 'slip' as they say a t these moments?"
Xander met his eyes with amusement.
"That's pretty much the sum of it and thanks, by the way. My shielding is really good, but it's not perfect which I think is the reason why I attract supernatural attention at times, I think though perhaps that it is not as much a case of my shields dropping as it is of your being sensitive to these things. I think maybe your senses in this are on par with some demons. What'ya think?"
"Yes, well. That may be the case perhaps. My mother on her side of the family has many priestesses in line dating back several hundred years. It may be that I have inherited a greater part of that gift than other male descendants before me due to my father's somewhat supernatural background as well."
"That sounds like a probable cause. And now that we've gone over all the basics about our respective masks what do you say about my playwrite? We will spar together and work together, I could really use someone who knows what he's doing with research and magic and I'm not going to keep you on the sidelines, we'll hunt together too. You keep my secrets and I'll keep yours, comrades in arms and all that."
"Yes." Wesley smiled. "I do think that's a very good idea indeed Mr. Harris."
"It's Alexander if you're going for formal otherwise, you're welcome to call me Xan."
"Alexander then, you have a deal."
They shook on it and Wesley felt a great warmth settle in his chest at the genuine sunny smile aimed his way..
Well all right so Wes had agreed to the current way of things, but sparring with Alexander still bloody hurt. Wasn't the other man's fault though, some lessons just had to be toughened out.
"Sorry Xan, my mind wandered."
Xander met his eyes with an understanding nod, but still chastised him.
"I know you've got a lot on your mind Wes, but if you don't keep your head in the game you will get killed and call me crazy, but I've really gotten fond of having you around. Yes, your still better at me with the knife throwing, but I can use knives and knowing different sorts of hand to hand will save your life one day so please, stop being such a prat and take your bloody punishment like a man."
Wesley laughed.
"Please don't ever try passing for an Englishman, Alexander. Your accent is simply horrific. I know that you are right about the hand to hand combat moves. I do need much more practice with it, but my soddin' buns hurt!"
At that Xander too had to laugh and then shake his head.
"I'm sorry Wes, I know how hard this must be for you, you're supposed to know this. We'll rest for tonight okay? We'll just do some stretching and then maybe we could call it a night and head over for Excess and some downtime? You can whoop my ass at knife-throwing tomorrow and we can work on my very bad psi-balls, it's Saturday, let's have some fun."
The last thing in the world that Wesley would have ever expected, no strike that, it wasn't even on the list when coming to Sunnydale, was being taught military hand to hand by a male teen before going to a club with said underaged young man for dancing and flirting with strangers of both sexes. Of course it helped that said teen really had the life experience of a 34 year old alternate self and his own life put together and spent a fair part of his nights patrolling for demons on the mouth of hell.
"Fucking Hell! Wesley I came as soon as I heard, are you okay? No, no of course you aren't, stupid question. Wes do you want me to kill her for you? I swear just say the word and Faith is dead."
Alexander. His voice was firm and his eyes held a mixture of anxiety and fierce protectiveness.
"I'm so sorry I wasn't there to save you, Wes. Jesus, what did she do to you? Dead, do you hear me? Just say the word."
Wesley smiled a pained little smile.
"Thank you, Xan, but right now I just want to forget this whole thing ever happened if it's all right with you. Thankfully the child has a lot to learn yet about proper torture."
"Yeah, too bad she didn't listen to you huh?"
"I am to blame too Alexander, I had to weigh my responsibilities to my slayer against the Council and I am afraid I misjudged how unstable she was. A slayer she is, but a child and I forgot. Stupid of me, I should know about rebellion after all…"
A tired sigh and Xander reached for his hand, squeezing it tightly.
"I'm glad that you don't want her dead Wes, however, the offer still stands. Faith is to blame for her own actions, no matter what you could have done better to help her. You did not hurt her; she had no right to hurt you. I've been as nice as I'm going to be, if she comes after any of you again she's going down."
Steel in the tone now and Wesley knows that he means it. There is no length that Alexander will not go to in order to do what he feels is just and to protect his friends.
Wesley tightens his grip on the warm hand that is clasping his and he feels a lock of his hair being pushed to the side.
"Sleep Wes, I'll watch over you."
"Wes? Where'd you go off to?"
Wesley's eyes refocused on the tanned face of his friend.
"Oh, I'm just taking a trip down memory lane and reminding myself how much better a friend you have been to me, that is all."
"Wes, come on. You're not that bad, we all make mistakes. I've made my share if you remember and even more since you left and I will definitely not be up for sainthood anytime soon."
"Right."
Wesley's smile was strained.
"You do have a penchant for doing stupid or even positively bad things."
"Yep stupid and bad doer, that's me."
"Yes, one might even go so far as to say that you act almost insane at times."
"Yep, insane that's me. Oh, hey! You made a joke. Good for you Wes, are we done with the self-pitying now? I really need to know some things like what this thing about Angel trying to kill you is all about."
The switch from goofy Xander shaped friend to the serious face of Alexander was as always instantaneous and Wesley sighed.
"I was hoping that you might have forgotten that, but I suppose you need to know about it."
And so Wesley continued to portray the whole Angel, Darla, Connor, Cordelia story and other little bits and pieces that had happened during the years that he for some reason or another had failed to mention.