Feedback: It makes me happy. Don't you want to make me happy?
Summary: AU. Angel O'Brien is trying his best to live a normal, safe life in L.A. But when his brother Angelus, CEO of Wolfram and Hart, forces him to return to the past he'd thought he'd escaped, Angel will have to deal with both his own inner demons and those of his friends if he wants to survive.
Author's Note: Everybody is human, and while most of the characters will stay in character, they will be different nonetheless. The timeline is obviously completely different from on BTVS and AtS. Most of this will be from Angel's point of view, but not all of it. Italics indicate thought June 14, 20053:12 AM
Speedway Gas Station, Somewhere in Michigan
Angel's POV-His arm hurts. The tears are flowing freely from his eyes and he feels like he's about to throw up. Liam's little eight-year-old body isn't equipped to deal with this pain. The arm itself is bent at an angle that the boy has never seen before. He's pretty sure it shouldn't look like that. Angelus has a firm grip on the uninjured arm and is steering him towards the house. It's cold outside, the middle of February, and the snow from the Connecticut winter covers the ground in sharp, cold heaps. There's ice on the sidewalks. He should've been careful. Angelus had told him that and laughed as Liam lay on the ground, cradling his broken arm.
"God above, Liam!" His mother runs out to him, seeing his pain. She hesitates before she scoops him up in an embrace. It would be hard to do that without moving the arm. Karen O'Brien hugs him gently and looks critically down at the limb. She is warm against the cold winter air and Liam wipes his face against her shirt.
"God," Mrs. O'Brien repeats, staring at the sick angle of her son's arm. Her face is very pale. Liam has never seen his mom look so scared before. "I think it's broken."
Liam is hustled inside to his father's study. "Liam!" his father exclaims, swiveling in his chair to look at his son in horror. Angelus lurks at Liam's shoulder, looking down at the ground. When Liam glances at his brother, he notices the small, almost invisible smile that rests upon his the older twin's lips.
"I think his arm is broken," Kathleen explains to her husband, not letting go of Liam. "I'm gonna go start the car. Liam, baby, it's going to be okay, just stay calm, honey." Mom sounds scared. That in itself terrified Liam. Mom and Dad didn't get scared. They just didn't.
"Liam, how did this happen?" His father asks, kneeling on the ground in front of Liam and gently taking hold of his uninjured shoulder. Daddy, Liam whimpered in his mind. His father smells of cologne and paper, and Liam wants to be lost in that smell. His father would protect him.
"I-" Angelus moves subtly closer to his brother and Liam feels a sharp, painful pinch on his side. Angelus had positioned himself so his body would be blocking the movement.
"It'll be okay, Lee," the older twin says, voice filled with nothing but worry and innocence. The fingers in his side pinch harder, making fresh tears flow from Liam's eyes.
Their father looks at them, his expression unreadable to an eight-year-old. "What happened, Liam?" Now Mr. O'Brien sounds suspicious, like when he thought the boys had done something and couldn't prove it.
"He slipped on the ice," Angelus answers. The smile is gone, replaced with an expression of concern. There are actual tears in his eyes. "We were playing and then he fell down that really big hill. I couldn't catch him."
"Did you fall on the ice, Liam?" His father's eyes demanded the truth.
What do I say? Angelus was pinching so hard that there was definitely going to be a bruise. Maybe…maybe things would be better if he just said yes. He hated it when people yelled, and if he said what had really happened, there would be a lot of yelling. And Angelus would get back at him, eventually. Besides, maybe he'd been confused. Maybe it hadn't been hands he'd felt on his back when he fell down the steep hill. Maybe it was the wind. Angelus probably hadn't been laughing as Liam heard a horrible, cracking noise emit from his arm. Liam had just tripped on the ice. It was winter. There was ice.
"Yes. I f-fell on the ice." The pinching fingers release him and Angelus rubs his back soothingly.
"Okay, let's get him to the hospital," comes his mother's voice. Liam gets to sit on his Mom's lap on the way to the emergency room, while Angelus sits alone in the back seat. When the injured boy glances back at his brother, Angelus smiles at him. Liam is very glad he'd said he tripped.-
Angel jerked awake as the memory released him. Where am I? It took him a moment to remember that he was sprawled in the backseat of the red Ford Explorer. He and Spike were in Michigan. Where in Michigan, Angel couldn't say. The detective vaguely remembered his partner waking him up earlier that night and telling him that if he was going to snore like a bear with a head cold, he should do it in the backseat. Angel couldn't remember actually moving from the passenger seat in the back, nor did he remember taking off his shoes and covering himself with a blanket, but he was quite sure that it had happened.
Rubbing his eyes with his right arm, the one that had been broken 26 years ago, Angel tried to shake off the memory. It didn't matter if Angelus had pushed him down the twenty-foot hill outside of their house when they were eight. It had been a long time ago. It didn't matter.
He struggled to a sitting position, shifting the blanket off of himself a little. The car was parked in a gas station. Spike was not in the driver's seat, but Angel could see the bright peroxide head in the gas station itself. Arguing with the cashier, by the looks of things.
Shaking his head, the detective tried to figure out where he was. Apart from the gas station, there was nothing but woods all around. Angel rather liked the woods. He'd grown up in Connecticut, which still had some nature in it, and had felt stifled by the city, at first. Now he was used to living in the concrete jungle, but it was still exceptionally nice to see so much green.
His watch said that it was 3:12 AM. The sky was a light grey color, soft pink where the sun was starting to rise. Angel lay back on the seat. He'd used his jacket as pillow, and it was warm where he'd been sleeping on it.
I can't believe I talked to Spike about Darla, he mused, staring at the ceiling of the car. It was strange to talk to someone who didn't know nearly every painful detail of his life, the way Cordy and Doyle did.
Liam O'Brien's life had never been a shining beacon of happiness, but he'd managed to maintain a sort of balance. That had all come apart in 1998. January 7, Darla had told him that she was pregnant. It had been the happiest day of his life. He was going to be a father. Angel hadn't even cared whether it was a girl or a boy. A baby. Sure, he'd been a little scared, but his joy had been enough to cancel that out completely. Darla had smelled like flowers when he hugged her and danced her around the room.
Five months later, it was clear to Angel that something was wrong. Darla wasn't happy anymore. No, she was closed off and sad, crying for no reason and clinging to him like any minute he was going to melt away. For no reason at all, she'd call and say that she loved him. It had scared Angel badly. He'd been worried she was dying or something. Then she'd dropped her bombshell.
Darla had been having an affair with Angelus. The baby wasn't Angel's. It was his brother's. That had been the only time that Angel had ever hit Darla, and the memory of it shamed him deeply.
But at the time, Angel had been running on nothing but rage and betrayal and the fury that simmered under his skin.
-"YOU SON OF A BITCH, I'LL KILL YOU!" Angel screamed as he threw open the door to Angelus' office. His brother looked up, startled. Spike, who was sitting across from him, looked equally alarmed. In the cold, clinical, assassin part of his mind, Angel realized that he'd interrupted a meeting of some kind. But no part of him could be brought to care.
"Angel, what-" was all Angelus could get out before his brother pounced on him, screaming and kicking. Angel wasn't even trying to fight properly. He wasn't going for the weak points or trying to incapacitate his brother. He was just out to hurt. Angel wanted to hit until his knuckles bled and kick until his toes broke. If he had to hurt, than so did Angelus.
Unfortunately, Angelus managed to back up enough to kick Angel in the gut, causing him to double over in pain. "What the fuck is wrong with you!" Angelus demanded, panting.
But Angel wasn't in the mood to talk. He wanted to hurt. The younger twin dove at his brother, hands outstretched, trying to jab at Angelus' eyes. The bastard moved too quickly though, and they ended up circling each other. Angel was steadily ignoring his brother's attempts to calm him down. Gonna kill you. Tear your head off with my bare hands. You took them away from me. Gonna kill you.
"Should I…should I call someone?" Spike asked. The Englishman was out of his chair, watching the two brothers warily.
"Stay out of this, Spike," Angel hissed, never taking his eyes off of his brother.
"Angel, what is wrong with you?" Angelus asked, holding up his hands to try and make peace.
"You!" Angel laughed bitterly. "You are everything that's wrong with me!" And he attacked again.
By the time Angelus threw him onto the desk, they were both bruised and bleeding. Angel's knee felt like it had an ice pick wedged in it. But Angelus had a black eye, a bloody nose, and he had curled his right arm close to his body, unable to fight with it any longer. Plus, the suit was absolutely ruined.
Angelus tried to pin Angel to the desk, but the younger twin had been an assassin for several years now, while Angelus had been sitting in his office making phone calls. Going to the gym three times a week could not compare to fighting life-or-death. Angel knew that for once in his life, he had the advantage.
Angel whirled and kicked his brother hard in the gut. Swearing, the CEO went down on his knees, clutching his stomach in pain. Angel did a low spinning kick that connected with his brother's shoulder and sent Angelus flying across the office.
His brother was down, helpless before him, and for the first time ever, Angel saw fear in Angelus' eyes. Fear of him. "I'm going to kill you," the assassin hissed, hate and power making his blood boil. Was this what Angelus felt all those times he'd beaten Angel up as a kid? No wonder he had done it so often.
But Angelus, as always, would not sit still and get killed. No, as soon as his brother was close enough, the CEO snapped out a kick that connected with Angel's already- injured knee. The younger twin went down hard.
"Spike!" the CEO yelled, and Angel felt a hard boot slam into his back. Agony shot up his spine, temporarily paralyzing him. In that space of time, Angelus ended up on top of him, pinning him to the ground.
"Angel," Angelus panted, ignoring his brother's struggles. "What's wrong with you?"
"YOU TOOK THEM AWAY FROM ME!" Angel screamed, animal rage filling him. He realized suddenly that he tears running down his face.
"Took…who?" asked Angelus, confused. His grip on Angel's arms never loosened though.
"You took them away!" Angel repeated again, struggling and screaming. "You couldn't just let me have something, could you, you bastard! You had to take her, and then you took him!" The assassin started thrashing again, like an animal in a trap, trying to dislodge his brother. Trying to kill his brother.
Angelus dragged Angel upwards slightly before slamming him into the ground. This managed to force some measure of rationality back into Angel's mind. Both brothers were panting, but unlike Angel, Angelus wasn't crying. He was simply wearing an angry, confused expression. A drop of blood slid from his face to hit Angel's cheek. Blood. The DNA in that blood was identical to Angel's. No one would have ever known that Connor wasn't Angel's. But Darla knew. A mother had to know.
"Liam," grip around his wrists tightening and loosening convulsively, "what's going on?"
"Connor isn't my son!" Angel screamed, and the words burned his throat. "He's yours! He isn't mine!" Sobbing, Angel closed his eyes and repeated quietly, "He isn't mine.
Angelus let go of his brother and sat up, expression shocked. Spike, who was standing by quietly after kicking Angel, summarized it as well as any of them could. "Bloody hell."-
Phantom injuries still ached when Angel thought of that day. Should have brought a gun and just killed the bastard, he thought coldly. But it had not been a day for smart thinking on anyone's part. Later, after giving Darla an ice pack to help with the black eye she'd been sporting, Angel had quietly asked for a divorce.
Connor was born on the eighth of October. Angel and Angelus had been the only non-medical people there. His birth had nearly killed Darla, and they'd eventually had to do a Caesarian section. But afterwards, watching her hold Connor, it occurred to Angel that his ex-wife had never looked so beautiful.
November had seen Angel leaving Wolfram and Hart for good. He had told Darla goodbye and held Connor for the first time. 'I love you' he'd whispered to his nephew, fighting back tears. Angelus had watched all of this quietly. Darla had moved in with the CEO after the divorce.
-"I'll bring you back, Angel. There's nowhere you go that I can't find you." Angelus had his arms crossed, and Angel wondered how this cold, evil man was going to raise the baby boy that he held in his arms. "Don't make me send someone to go get you."
Angel gave Connor back to Darla and glared at his brother. "Send whoever you want, you bastard. I'll leave them in a puddle of their own blood."-
Lindsey had fallen to his knees when Angel had shot him. Blood fell like rain from his hand. Angelus had reckoned that there was no way Angel would hurt his best friend. But Angelus hadn't known that Angel and Lindsey had not parted friends.
-"Oh, scary words," Angelus sneered.
"Puddle of their own blood," Angel repeated. "Just keep that in mind."
"I will take away everything you have, little brother," Angelus called after his brother as Angel made his way towards the elevator. He wondered, briefly, whether or not Connor would be safe in the penthouse apartment, but he shrugged it off. It was no longer his problem. "Don't think I can't."
Angel laughed harshly. "Go ahead, boss." Identical sneer. "I got nothing left to lose."
Angel had indeed wandered the world. From L.A. to Taiwan, where he had stayed long enough to allow Buddhism to creep into his mind, where it settled right next to the Catholicism he'd been born and raised with.He didn't exactly have a religion anymore. More like a mix. He'd gone from Taiwan to Sri Lanka, then a long boat trip to South Africa. Up along the African coast to Europe. Europe had been an interesting continent, one that had sunk into his skin and his bones, and he could still call up the feel of it today, if he wanted to. He'd made money by doing odd jobs, mostly. House and yard work, painting, building. And drawing. Angel had, to his amusement, become the guy that sat outside tourist attractions and offered to draw people for ten dollars.
But it had been worth it, because Europe had healed some part of him. Angel wasn't sure what part had done it, exactly. He'd been to so many places that he couldn't pinpoint which city in particular had helped him cope the most. It could have been Rome, or perhaps Paris. Venice, or Brussels, or one of the dozens of cities he'd visited in Spain. (Romania was definitely not the one, though. Angel had pretty much been chased out of there with torches and pitchforks. Damn gypsies.) But all Angel knew was that by the time he reached the United Kingdom, he no longer felt like killing himself.
He had stayed in the U.K. for what felt like lifetimes. Angel knew that if he ever needed to run away again, he'd run to England. Or maybe Ireland; he never quite decided which he liked better.
Eventually, Angel had come back to the United States, feeling very different then he had when he'd left it. And, somehow, he had ended up in California, despite vehement declarations that he would never come back to that godforsaken state. But it was in California that Angel had found Sunnydale. Three hours away from Los Angeles. Never let it be said that Angel couldn't take risks.
Angel had loved Buffy the moment he saw her. Which was somewhat strange, being as how the first time he'd seen her, she was kicking a mugger in the groin. But that had not deterred Angel at all. He had gone up to her, kicked the already downed mugger once for good measure, and asked if she wanted to go for coffee. All his self-loathing had been put on hold. Around Buffy, Angel felt like good. Like he was a person worth saving. Two months later, they were officially dating.
Buffy had been a sophomore in college in 2002, which made her much younger than Angel. Buffy's annoying little friend Xander pointed that out often. It hadn't seemed to matter though. Angel and Buffy were soon nearly inseparable. Looking back on things, Angel was amazed at how easily he'd sunk into life in Sunnydale. He had gotten a job working as a bartender at The Bronze, a local club. He had made friends with most of the people Buffy cared for, and he'd even managed to get her mom, Joyce Summers, to like him. Although that was mostly luck, plus the good word of Dawn, Buffy's little sister, who had developed an almost instantaneous crush on him.
Lying to Buffy hurt Angel in ways he hadn't thought he could be hurt again. Lying was what made relationships crumble to dust. But he'd convinced himself that if he told the truth about his past, Buffy would hate him. Everyone would hate him.
Still, truth had a way of always coming out. And come it had, carried with Darla. They had all been there. Buffy, Willow, Cordelia, Xander, Oz, and even Giles, for some reason. Two in the morning and Angel had been in the process of closing up The Bronze. Everyone had been talking when suddenly all conversation went dead. There was Darla, holding Connor, dressed in dirty jeans and an army jacket. She'd had one more bombshell to drop on Angel, but at least she'd waited till they were home to do it.
-"He's yours," she told him. They were standing in Angel's apartment and Darla was holding Connor out to Angel.
Angel was lost for words, feeling like the earth had suddenly fallen out from under him and he was just dangling in the air. "Why?" was all he managed to get out, which didn't even make sense.
"I lied to you, and Angelus," Darla explained, tears running down her face. "Connor is your son."
"But…why?" Angel still hadn't touched Connor, even though Darla clearly wanted him to. The three-year-old was staring at Angel and the apartment in fascination, sucking his thumb quietly.
"Lee," Darla bit her lip. She had taken off her jacket and Angel could see the track marks that dotted her arms. "I was scared. I…I didn't know what was going to happen and I just," she looked down and sighed. "Your brother had more money than he could spend in a lifetime. And the people who have the money are the safe ones."
"Is that why you slept with him?" Angel asked bitterly. "So you'd know you were safe?"
Her frank answer of "Yes" startled the brunette a little. He almost laughed. "So you loved me, but you didn't think I would, what, keep us from living on the streets?"
"Dammit, Liam, I grew up in a trailer park!" Darla shouted, startling both Connor and Angel. "I grew up watching my Dad beat my Mom when he'd have a bad day at work. But she never left the bastard because she knew she couldn't take care of me and my sisters alone! So yeah, I'm scared of being poor, because no one cares about you when you're poor. You're a number when you're poor."
Angel blinked. He'd had no idea his wife was so afraid. Maybe if he had, he could've stopped the affair from happening. Speaking of which…"But wait. How do you know Connor really isn't Angelus' kid?"
"Because we always used a condom," she answered. Her blonde hair was greasy, darker roots showing clearly. Darla had not been living well. Connor looked healthy enough, though. "He didn't remember, but I did."
"Why are you here? Does Angelus know you're here? Wait, does he know I'm here?" Angel asked. Does he know you're using drugs, he added mentally.
"I left L.A.," Darla answered softly, and she had never looked so tired. "I couldn't do it, Lee. I couldn't lie. So I told him the truth and then I left. Wolfram and Hart was no place to raise a child." She looked down at the track marks on her arms and sobbed. "I don't think I'm doing much better."
Her blue eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot as she looked at him. "But you. Lee, I saw your face when you found out I was pregnant. I heard you tell Connor that you loved him when you left L.A. Even when you thought he wasn't yours, you loved him. You're a better parent than I can be. You aren't afraid like I am. He's yours, Liam. And you deserve to have him." She held Connor out again, and this time, Angel took him. He held the warm little body close to his own. Connor didn't even wiggle around, just snuggled up to Angel and laid his head against his father's shoulder.-
The next day, Angel had met his friends in Buffy's living room. He told them everything and for the first time understood fully how insane his life was. His story was long, made longer by the questions asked by the people he'd come to care for like family. The entire time, Connor sat in front of him, munching on Fig Newtons and coloring in the Winnie the Pooh coloring book that Joyce had given him.
But the most insane part of it was that Buffy didn't leave him. He wasn't chased out of Sunnydale by an angry mob. Sure, no one really trusted him anymore, but he was still a part of the group. Darla left after about a week and that had been the last time Angel had seen her. She left Connor with him.
What truly struck the detective as unfair was that when he was finally chased out of Sunnydale, uprooting Connor from his home again, it was because of something Angelus had done. So was the story of Angel's life.
Dammit, the brunette though wryly. I'm brooding again. He could hear Spike unhooking the gas pump from the car, swearing angrily. The driver's side door was nearly ripped open as Spike threw himself in. He was growling curses under his breath as they peeled out of the gas station, leaving rubber burns behind, no doubt.
"You awake, Peaches?" Spike asked.
"Um, yeah, getting there," Angel responded, yawning a little.
"Good, means I can yell." Spike took a deep breath. "That fat, pimply little ponce of a human being wouldn't take my damn money!"
"Why's that?" Angel asked, sitting up.
"Because they don't take 'English money'," Spike hissed, faking a falsetto voice. "They speak the bloody freaking language, so what the bloody hell is wrong with the bloody money! Should shoot off his bollocks, if they've even dropped! See how inclined he is to take me money then!"
"Are you finished?" Angel questioned. Spike's rants were sometimes very amusing. The Englishman nodded. "Are we talking pounds here, or did you have euros?"
"Pounds," Spike responded. "And don't ask why they're all I have in me wallet, because 'm honestly not sure."
The detective smiled. Despite the painful assault of memories on his mind, he felt remarkably good. He'd slept off his jet lag, apparently. "How far are we from Redgrass?"
"Just a couple of miles." Spike grinned back at him. "And be ready, Peaches, 'cause when we get there, the real fun starts."
TBC