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 thoughtJune 14, 2005
4:07 PM
Just Outside of Regdrass, Michigan
They had been in the car for too long. The arguing and name-calling that always went on between Spike and Angel was quickly degenerating into snarling and shoving. The sooner they got to Redgrass, the better.
Spike was flipping though the radio stations again, while Angel watched him nervously for more signs that he was going to try driving with his feet again. The brunette shuddered at the memory. Once Spike settled on a typically appalling song, Angel relaxed a little and stifled a yawn. He was waking up very slowly.
"Hey, Spike," Angel said, a thought occurring to him, "aren't you tired or something? You've been driving all night."
"I usually stay up all night anyway," Spike responded, smoking out the open car window. "You should remember what that was like."
Angel did. Daytime was the time for the cops and the feds and the rest of the world to take care of their business. Night was when the crooks did their dealings. Being as how Angel was immersed in the world of criminals, night was also when he worked. And none of this results in me getting a tan, he thought, righteously bitter. The day I die, my skin will be maybe two shades paler than it already is.
The detective contemplated getting up from his cozy little bed in the backseat, but decided against it. He felt very…mellow. Like he could stay forever in this little bubble of peace. The sky was beginning to become pale blue and tree branches formed an arch over the road they were driving under. Things were good now, and Angel was loath to bring an end to the serenity he felt.
But the car turned and rumbled to a stop, letting Angel know that his meditation time was over. He rose up out of his seat and looked around. Then he squinted. Things were definitely not right. Either Redgrass had been reduced to rubble and been grown over by woods in the space of a few hours, or Spike had parked in the forest.
Angel pulled his shoes and socks on quickly, then got out of the car. His blonde partner was gazing contemplatively out into the forest, twiddling his thumbs.
"Um, Spike?" the brunette asked hesitantly. He hated not knowing the plan. It made him very confused and then he usually had to yell and make threats to get someone to explain what was going on. And that was just tiring.
"Oi?"
"We aren't in a city." This did not seem like the sort of thing that he needed to point out, but Spike seemed to have brief fits of total insanity. Better safe than sorry.
"Wow, did you figure that out all on your own? Bloody fabulous detective you are. Nothing gets past you."
Angel's eye twitched. "So then what are we doing here?" You idiot, but he didn't say that out loud.
Spike rummaged for his pack of cigarettes before noticing the vile look Angel was giving him. The Englishman rolled his eyes and responded, "Quit eyeballin' me, Peaches. Let a man have his petty vices, even if they are cancerous."
The detective barked out a laugh. "All of your vices tend to be either illegal, immoral, or cancerous. You've been smoking like a chimney since I woke up. Now, I repeat, what are we doing here?"
The most irritating part about Spike was that it didn't matter what expression he was wearing, there was always a smirk in there somewhere. If Spike was hit by a bus and then set on fire, whatever was left of his face would have a smirk on it. Such was the case as the blonde feigned confusion at Angel's question. "Why what do you mean?" That damnable smirk. "We're sittin' here in the woods, talking."
Count to ten, Angel. Just count. One, two-"Yes, I am aware that we are talking. Why are we in the woods talking?"
"Because both of our bodies are outside of the car," said the blonde, looking completely innocent and appropriately vapid. Three, four-
Another sigh of frustration. "What is that you wanted to talk about, Spike?" Five, six-
Spike's smile was positively evil. "I forget."
Oh screw it. Angel moved to hit the bleached menace, but Spike moved back, hands up in the 'I surrender' position. "All right, all right. Don't get your dander up. You really are too easy, pet."
When Angel's glare only became darker, Spike sighed and pulled a map out of his duster pocket. He unrolled it and spread it across the hood of the car. "This is a map of Redgrass. Pay attention now. Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Your pockets must be really deep, to fit the entire map in there," Angel stated contemplatively. "Was that in there the whole trip?"
Spike looked at him incredulously for a moment, then shook his head. "God, what an interesting gene pool you and your brother share. Anyway, this is Redgrass." The map was about the size of a standard road map. It was covered with marks and writing that had been added in pen. All of the streets in the town were visible, in addition to some of the major buildings, like city hall or the police station. There were dots on several different streets, with addresses written under them. The dots, Angel was interested to notice, came in varying colors of red, blue, green, and purple.
The Englishman pointed to Whedon Street, where a purple dot was located with the words '1212' underneath it. "This is where we're staying. It's on the edges of the warehouse district. A bunch of people rent buildings in the area, so we have some cover there. You still have that photographic memory thing going on?" Angel nodded. "Good. Memorize what the different colors mean. Blue is neutral places, restaurants and small businesses and the like that aren't owned by Hamilton. Green is the major moneymaking areas, like the docks and the shipping centers. Red are places of badness, owned by Hamilton and his cronies." The red dots nearly covered the map.
"What do the red X's mean?" Angel asked.
Spike grimaced. "Those are places that we haven't managed to infiltrate. We don't know what goes on there. 'S a real bitch."
"So what do the purple dots stand for, then?"
"Those are places that belong to us. Safe spots."
The detective smiled humorlessly. "There aren't very many purple dots."
Smirking, Spike answered, "Noticed that, did you?"
Angel squinted at a large, yellowish stain on one corner of the map. "What it that?"
Spike studied it for a moment before answering, "Beer. 'Least, I think it was beer. I know I spilled something while I was looking at the map."
Sighing through his nose, Angel committed the map to memory. He closed his eyes and pictured the town in his mind. 1212 Whedon Street, base of operations. Blue was neutral, red was evil, purple was good, and green was money. There. The detective rolled his neck, happy to hear little pops as his muscles and bones relaxed. "Why are we parked in the woods instead of being in Redgrass?"
"I reckoned you needed to see a layout of the town before we actually got there. It would help you focus your obsessive little head."
"My head is not little. It's much bigger than yours," Angel responded airily, walking around the car to get in the passenger side door.
Spike snorted. "S'pose it helps to contain all the guilt. A smaller head would've exploded long before now."
Eyebrows furrowed, Angel struggled to come up with a response, but failed. It was possible that the Englishman had him there. Spike also entered the car and tried to refold the map. He was cursing angrily as the paper refused to fold correctly and started to wrinkle.
"C'mon Spike, be smarter than the paper," Angel advised cheerfully.
"'M smarter than the paper and you," the blonde man snapped, "but neither of you will cooperate."
Angel sighed and took the paper from his partner's hands and folded it perfectly. As Spike glared at him, Angel shrugged. "I like to be neat."
The red SUV rumbled to life and reversed out of the small road in the woods where it had been parked. Its occupants were mostly silent as they began the last leg of the journey to Redgrass.
"Okay," Spike muttered as he drove the car up a hill, "here we go."
Once the car reached the top, the town below sprang into view so suddenly it was almost startling. Redgrass sprawled from the bottom of the hill to the beach, which was a good amount of real estate. Lake Michigan lay as a backdrop to the city, the brilliant morning sun making the lake sparkle and dance. It was beautiful. The lake and the town made a picturesque setting. It was the sort of place that would seem perfect to settle down and raise a family.
"Right," Spike sighed, and Angel noticed his hands tightening on the wheel, "now pay attention. Learn how to get to our safe house."
"Are you okay?" It was a bad, bad thing when the person driving the car was in a fragile emotional state.
"Yeah, 'm fine. It's just…" Spike almost seemed to shudder, "bein' in this place is oppressive. Gives me the creeps."
"Huh," Angel grunted noncommittally. From where he was, he couldn't see anything overtly strange about Redgrass. If he hadn't known who owned it, the brunette would probably think it was just another coastal town.
'Now Entering City Limits. Welcome to Redgrass!' a sign proclaimed. Angel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he was ready. It was time to think like Wolfram and Hart's top assassin again.
With that thought in mind, the detective started noticing all the things that were wrong in Redgrass. They were little, subtle things. If a person wasn't looking for them, they would miss the clues entirely.
The first thing that popped out at Angel was the houses. Most houses gave some sort of clue as to the personality of the person that lived there. Be it a lawn gnome, pink plastic flamingo, or a shrub, the outside of a home revealed something about the person inside. The houses in Redgrass didn't. The lawns were well manicured and none of the houses seemed to be in a state of total disrepair, but that was it. There were no flower bushes or decorations or toys left in the yards. The houses looked like model homes, and Angel wouldn't have been terribly surprised to find that there was no furniture in any of the buildings.
"Do people actually live here, or are the buildings just facades?" the detective asked his partner.
Spike was nibbling his lower lip. "Um, most of 'em live in the neighboring towns. Some of Hamilton's goons actually inhabit the place, but those are mostly the high-ranking ones he wants to keep an eye on, an' they live in the more upscale neighborhoods. These houses here are mostly just places to meet, sort of like offices. If you actually went in one, you could tell right off that nobody really lived there."
The close examination of the houses also brought something else to attention: the animals. Some of the houses had dogs in the backyards, but Angel saw no beagles, terriers, or small dogs of any kind. There weren't even the usual breeds, like golden retrievers or Dalmatians. Instead, there were German Shepards in every other yard, pit bulls tied to trees, and mastiffs prowling behind fences. In fact, some were breeds Angel hadn't seen before. But what all the dogs had in common was that they were huge and looked quite capable of killing a person.
"Scale of one to ten, how well-trained are these dogs?" Angel asked, his eyes drawn to a massive pit bull pacing at the end of a chain. It bared its teeth and barked as the car passed.
"We got a couple guys undercover at the docks. First day you go to work there, they bring out a German Shepard that they keep in the office. They stick it on one side of a fence and put the newbies on the other. Then they tell it to attack. According to Gunn, the thing almost bit through the fence trying to get at them. But the minute its owner told it to heel, Rover was sitting there so quietly that you could barely tell it was awake." Spike shivered a little. "I hate dogs. Scale of one to ten, I give 'em a thirty-eight."
"Who's Gunn?"
"We've been calling him the spymaster. He's in charge of all of the undercover agents we have in town, and a few of them outside. He also works at the docks an' keeps track of what goes in and out every day." The brunette filed this information away for later use.
The more Angel looked, the more details sprang out at him. There was no Starbucks, no McDonalds, no fast food restaurants of any kind. There hadn't been a mall on the map, either. None of the retailers that populated a normal American city were present in Redgrass. It was unnerving for Angel, who was so used to the lights of L.A., to see no advertisements or neon signs proclaiming store names.
A small diner drew Angel's eye and he asked his partner about it. Spike glanced at the diner, and one corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. "That, Peaches, is one of the very few places in this godforsaken town that don't have Hamilton's slimy fingers wrapped squarely around it. 'S run by a lady named Anne. She's a nice bird. Her French fries are almost better than sex."
"Thanks for that, Spike."
"Just lookin' out for my favorite poof. Reckon you haven't gotten any lately."
Angel would have protested, except that he knew it was true. Instead, he vowed to do something mean to Spike at a later date and went back to observing Redgrass.
It occurred to the detective suddenly that there was one thing that really was clearly wrong with the town. Children. There were no children, anywhere. No babies crying in houses, no ten-year-olds running around in the yards, and no teenagers roaming the streets. Added to that, and almost more disturbing, was how obvious it was. Angel didn't see any playgrounds. He saw no bikes or soccer balls or Barbie dolls anywhere. Even if he'd only lived with Connor for a few months, Angel understood that children and clutter went hand-in-hand, but Redgrass was eerily neat. Everything was under control.
"Do they have a school building here?" How strange, that Angel should feel so appalled at the absence of children. It was as if, without their presence, things were so fundamentally flawed that it was obvious to anyone.
Spike snorted. "Yeah, they got a fake elementary school. 'S where they house the prostitutes they bring in."
"That is unnecessarily creepy."
"No arguments there."
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Everything that was so terribly off about Redgrass leapt out at Angel clearly and he knew it wasn't just because he was looking specifically for these things. No, any normal person would catch on eventually. The entire town gave off the feeling of looking at someone in a Halloween mask. It was obvious that if you peeled back the top layer, there was something else underneath.
Reaching Whedon Street was almost a relief. At least there was one place of normality amongst all the strangeness. The brunette listened as Spike explained how the workers that did remain lived in the warehouses, away from any prying eyes that weren't in on the operation.
Angel's new home was a nondescript brown building. It appeared to have two floors. The narrow slits of windows were all located high up on the building, and there was only one door that Angel could see.
"Is there more than one exit?" the brunette asked, staring at the warehouse critically.
Spike gave him an annoyed glance. "Of course there is. I've been doing this almost as long as you have. 'S on the side of building. We painted it the same color as the walls and there's no outside doorknob."
Nonplussed, Angel simply nodded and continued running over his mental inventory of what made a building safe. "Are the windows blacked out?
"No, we have boxes blocking them so it doesn't look like we're deliberately trying to hide anything. Can we go inside?"
"What about Hamilton's people? What's our excuse for using this building?"
"As far as they know, it's where Gunn hangs his do-rag. C'mon, inside, you need to meet Wesley."
"What about the neighbors?"
"We have none. You're being a ponce."
"Have you checked out the buildings around us, though?"
"Argh, yes, all of them."
"Daily checks of them?"
Spike rolled his eyes. "If that will make you happy, yes, the buildings will be checked."
Angel stared at his partner. "You are going to check them personally."
The blonde opened his mouth to protest, but Angel glared hard. He knew what he was doing. He was in his element. "Angelus put me in charge, William, so we're doing this my way. You will be checking the buildings every night. I want to know what's going on around us at all times."
Spike muttered something about, "poncey-haired control freaks", but did not protest further.
Angel tapped his fingers on his arm for a moment before his next point came to him. "This place has a basement, correct?" Spike nodded. "Does the basement have sewer access?"
"Yeah," the blonde drawled, glancing occasionally at the door to 1212 Whedon Street.
"Do we have a map of the sewers?"
Spike looked like a kid who'd gotten caught cheating on a test. "No," he ground out, "and why the bleedin' hell would we need one?"
"No one ever expects an attack from below," Angel explained. "Therefore, it's helpful to know what exactly is below."
"Fine, fine, can we go into the nice building now?"
The brunette smiled amiably, basking in his rare chance to be the annoying one for a change. "Well, sure, if it'll make you happy, we'll go in."
Rolling his eyes, Spike exited the car and headed up to the building, Angel close behind him. The detective was amused to see Spike wince when the car automatically locked with a pleasant chirp.
"Do I get a set of keys?" Angel asked as he watched his partner choose one key out of the huge keyring he had stored in his pocket and begin to unlock the door.
"No, you'll be required to break in," Spike responded, struggling to get the second lock opened.
Finally, the door to the warehouse swung open quickly and Spike slipped inside, gesturing for Angel to follow him. The interior of the warehouse was dimly lit, a few bare, dangling bulbs illuminating stacks of boxes piled one on top of the other. Most of them looked like they contained electronic equipment, but Angel would have to actually look inside to be sure. A small metal staircase in the far left corner led up through the ceiling to what was presumably the second floor. The floor was concrete and cold.
"Seems…homey," Angel muttered, staring around distastefully. This was not going to be a fun place to live.
Spike smirked at him again and approached the far wall. Angel squinted at it. The wall seemed…strange, somehow. Then he realized that it was too close, when compared with the wall outside. The wall he was looking at was actually built in the middle of the warehouse.
It was almost fascinating to watch as Spike approached the wall and knocked three times. There was the sound of fumbling, and then a wholly unnoticeable door swung open. No outer knob for this door either, Angel observed.
"Uh yeah, Angel, this is Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. Likes to be called Percy," said Spike, gesturing to the man who had opened the door. "Percy, this is Angel. Likes to be called Peaches."
Angel's first impression of Wesley was that he had lost his favorite razor and refused to shave without it. He didn't have a beard, exactly, more of a halfway point between bearded and clean-shaven. Other than that peculiarity, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce looked normal, much more so than some of the people Spike had introduced him to. The new man was actually slightly taller than Angel, although much skinnier. His eyes were almost the same shade of blue as Spike's. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a light brown, long sleeved T-shirt.
The man grimaced at Spike, his lips tightening in a way that Angel had always associated with the British. "Shut up," Wesley ordered the blonde, and Angel mentally cheered himself. Definitely British.
"Wot? You know you like it when I call you Percy." Spike smiled amiably.
Wesley glared at him once more, before focusing his attention on the detective. "You would be Angelus' twin brother, then?"
"Uh, yeah." Angel glanced at Spike for a moment. "For the record, I don't want to be called Peaches. Angel is just fine."
"Hmm," Wesley murmured noncommittally, looking Angel up and down. The brunette felt a bit like an insect under the microscope, so intense was Wesley's scrutiny of him.
Silence reigned as the two men took each other in. "Right," Spike finally said. "This is going to be a real party. Gotta go fetch the others to give 'em a proper introduction to Peaches here, so I'll just leave you two crazy kids to it. Percy, be a good lad and show the Great Poof to his room, will ya?" And with a swirl of leather and the click of locks in the door, Spike was gone.
The two brunettes stared at the departing figure for a moment. "Spike is annoying," Angel remarked after a moment.
"Indeed," Wesley agreed. They glanced at each other uncomfortably for a moment, the awkwardness like a tangible thing.
"I would introduce myself more fully," Wesley said suddenly, "but Spike will be back with the others on our team, and it would simply be repetitive."
"Okay," Angel agreed readily. "Um, do I have someplace to, y'know, sleep?"
"Oh, er, yes," Wesley answered brightly, happy to have something to break the silence. "We have a secondary staircase back here that we use to get to most of the rooms on the second floor. The staircase in front leads up to a façade of a room. No one actually sleeps there."
"Huh," Angel responded. The back area of the warehouse was an exact opposite of the front. There were papers and books scattered everywhere, in addition to shoes, empty food wrappers, and a weapon or two sitting on a table. Several desks were crowded with maps and pictures of various people. "This is…crowded."
"Yes, we'll familiarize you with all of it later, once the entire group is together. Theoretically, we also have another man coming in from L.A. tonight, but who knows?" Wesley shrugged as he led Angel up the metal staircase.
The staircase opened up into a narrow hallway, with doors lining each side. "Your room is the last one to the left. The bathroom is the door at the end of the hall. Try not to be too long in it during the morning."
Angel was debated explaining that he couldn't function well unless he took a long time in the bathroom, but Wesley was already going back down the staircase. "Uh, it was nice to meet you," Angel called to him, not really sure of himself.
Wesley paused and stared at him for a long time. "You are very different from your brother," he said at last, his face unreadable.
"Well, I try," Angel joked weakly.
That, strangely enough, made Wesley smile for the first time since Angel had arrived. "I would speak with you more, but I'm trying to research something," the Englishman explained, seeming more friendly now. "I notice you have no suitcases."
"Er, yeah, they're in the car…which Spike has driven away." Angel sighed. "Crap. So, it turns out that at the moment I just have this backpack."
Wesley smiled again. "Well, you could unpack whatever is in the backpack and sleep. Or come downstairs. Whatever you like." With a final nod, Wesley descended the stairs.
Angel blinked a few times and then continued on to his room. It had been a long night. He was still tired.