There was something about being a Watcher that lingered on even after there had been terminations and resignations. A connection to the books and the generations of information that had once been in their hands.
Wesley had failed at being a Watcher. He'd failed quite badly and he knew that but he hadn't walked away from his career without retaining a bit of what he had learned. He wasn't a stupid man, if anything that was one of the few marks that wasn't against him. He was arrogant but never stupid and so he knew when he saw another Watcher. It wasn't hard to recognize the lingering effects of the Academy or the research methods they'd been trained with.
He had not expected to find another of his kind however in Wolfram and Hart of all places but after a moment's surprise he had reminded himself that if he was there, then why shouldn't another Watcher be?
After all, they were neither of them Watchers any more.
He worked with the man a few times. Rutherford Sirk was the kind of man he could see having done either very well or very poorly among the Watchers. He was intelligent, he knew his books but there was a sharpness to him, something greedy in a way that told him the man had probably not been cut out for being a Watcher.
But then who was? Men like his father and Quentin Travers who loved making and obeying rules almost as much as they enjoyed inflicting them upon other people? No, Sirk had a kind of edge to him that those men lacked, he was willing to do what they were not even if it was not to the betterment of the world.
Well, that was largely a matter of opinion. For all of their centuries of existence the Watchers had not always had the best in mind for the world or for their Slayers. Wesley knew that now, understood it in a way he hadn't in the past.
Sirk must have had his reasons for leaving and if he did, they were probably good reasons. Odd though, most people were fired. It wasn't the kind of job you quit.
One evening he had a chance to speak to the man.
They were working late in the library, his own mind needing the distraction and for whatever reason Sirk was there along side of him.
Despite himself he was curious. People just didn't quit being Watchers. It just wasn't done and after a moment he thought himself capable of asking.
"What made you leave the Watchers?" He asked as they reshelved books and finished up for the night.
Sirk, several years older than him looked up, somehow amused. "That's a rather personal question." He said.
Wesley shrugged. "I was under the impression that I would be in charge of this department. I think I have a right to know who's working for me."
Another amused look. "To an extent, of course you do but you know I haven't been a Watcher for a very long time."
Wesley nodded. "Old habits die hard." He said, motioning to the cataloguing system they were using.
Sirk smiled slightly, expression still amused. "Isn't that the truth." He said. "You're Wyndham-Pryce's son, aren't you?"
Wesley paused. "Yes, did you work with my father?"
"Not exactly. He. . . he and I saw things from different angles. I saw potential, he saw. . . well not what I was seeing." Curious. "But you needn't worry, we were nearly a generation apart . We hardly interacted. Your father is a man of politics, I was a researcher. He had ambition while I appraised that the most ambitious thing I could do was to keep my head down."
Ah.
"I can't say he impressed me. You're a little more interesting however. Men like your father are a square cut, you know what cloth they come from and how they're stitched together. Travers was like that too. You however don't strike me as one of them. You've been cut from the cloth."
Wesley didn't know what to make of that. Was his failure so noticeable?
"There's a reason there aren't any Watchers any more. They didn't weather their extinction event the way they thought they would but it's their own fault. There were rumblings before the end came."
"And you heard them?"
"Oh yes and I made sure to not be there when the meteor hit."
"You made sure a good chunk of the library wasn't there either."
Sirk smiled slightly. "Well, I didn't want them going to waste and when you move across the Atlantic you need some sort of insurance."
"So you sold them."
"Yes, just the one's I could afford to." A tighter smile. "I kept the best for my own personal collection."
So that was it. Sirk was an opportunist. Someone who had fit in until they hadn't. At this point he didn't even know if he could fault him. His life hadn't turned out anything like he had planned or expected it to.
In some ways he could see himself ending up like this man, a relic of a failed state, one of the few Watchers left. . .
He shelved his last book and turned to Sirk who was unruffled by his questions and uninterested in why he was asking. "How did you end up here?"
"How did you? The skills we obtained in the academy are useful in a number of fields and here I've found the pay to be substantially better. The benefits too."
Wesley nodded. This was just a job to this man. He wasn't interested in saving or damning the world. How quaint to be so removed and self focused.
"If it makes you happy to know, they made me an offer. Of course my stolen codexes came with it but I think they made me an adequate offer just the same. I was dealing in magical antiques before this, hardly befitting my skill set but there you go."
It was normal. This was what happened when there was no council to reign in the remaining Watchers. Curious that they'd both ended up in this building.
"I'll admit however that I do apricate having another former Watcher to work with." Sirk said to his surprise. "The American academics that have been thrown my way have provided little but disappointment. You try getting one of them to appreciated the subtleties of Akkadian Cuneiform and it's use in poetry. No, they're all post-grad students who think people are actually going to read their dissertations. No appreciation for data entry."
Wesley smiled slightly. He had almost forgotten how long it had been since he'd been home. He'd come to think of California as his home now. He'd never felt competent before. It had been here that he'd found his feet.
Funny that after the smoke had cleared this man was also here, at the edge of the world and still standing.
Travers and men like his father wouldn't do well in the heat here. The sun was probably too much for them and the pace of life in L.A. unpleasant as it would remind them of the modern world. How he had lasted he didn't know but here was Sirk, uninterested in romanticizing and whatever his motivations were, shelving books after hours.
Computers were taking over the world and in this new place, California they seemed faster and brighter than anywhere else but he and Sirk were not part of this and they stood in the library, shelving and cleaning up, ancient pages shielded behind leather covers as they existed along side the bright and modern world with her glowing screens and electric mice.
"You're not going to be introspective all night, I hope?" Sirk asked. "I don't mean to be rude but it is rather tedious. I've enjoyed my career since leaving the Watchers. I don't have any plans of returning to England or of rejoining them should they find a way to reform."
The idea suddenly struck him. He wasn't going to do that either. If the Watchers did reform he wouldn't be part of it. He had moved on with his life. This man had just done it without any real failures it seemed.
"No, we're almost done here anyway." Wesley muttered, embarrassed by his own thoughts and the questions' he had asked. He hadn't hit it off with Rupert Giles and as far as he knew the man was the only other Watcher product besides himself and Sirk in California. It was familiar almost to talk to someone who had come from the same place as he but he wasn't a fool. This man was noting like him and pretending that they had anything truly in common was ignorant. This was someone who survived extinction events.
Sirk would never tell him his secrets. What books he still had, what codexes he'd managed to hide from the Senior Partners. . . what side he was really on and asking wasn't going to do him any good.
The books were put up and the lights dimmed in the halls and there was nothing left to stay and pretend to talk about.
Wesley wondered what extinction he was going survive and perhaps what he already has. Sunnydale and two Slayers. . . demigods and more. He wasn't stupid. They all had expiration dates but he hoped that when he came to that moment or that moment came to him, he wouldn't be like Sirk.
Sirk would survive because he wouldn't try to save anyone else, just himself and Wesley knew that when extinction came for him he would have to deicide what kind of survival he wanted. Was he capable of escaping as Sirk had done? Of throwing others out of the life boat and filling it with treasures to keep himself afloat?
He found himself resenting the man slightly, in all his composure and dignity Sirk never pretended to be anything other than what he was. A selfish survivor and Wesley doubted then as he turned off the lights that he would follow the path Sirk had. Whatever the man's reasons they were his own and he, Wesley had lived his own life and made his own bed to sleep in.
They left the building together, Sirk unbothered by his curiosity and Wesley's head cloudy with uncertain futures and vanished pasts.
Sirk hadn't really answered his questions, hadn't said what he got out of working for Wolfram and Hart aside from what any company offered. He'd be wary of this man. Sirk was intelligent and he knew how to survive. Men like that were dangerous but for now there was no reason to disturb the waters and as they exited the building and went their separate ways Wesley wondered how many other Watchers or former Watchers there were out there who had gotten away and found they worked better without ancient regulations ruling down from on high.
Far from home and a million miles from where he'd thought he'd be, Wesley had built a life for himself and as he headed home he thought about Sirk and the stolen codexes and what it all meant. He'd once seen the Watchers as beacons of good and righteousness but they were gone and in the end they had been only men.
Now it seemed only their most cynical had survived. Men like him and Sirk who had probably never really belonged there in the first place.
If they ever did rise from the ashes again he feared what they would be. His father was still out there and Sirk would probably never again bare the title of Watcher, he count imagine himself under it either but there would always be some that fit the mould. That came from that sacred cloth as Sirk had called it.
They were misguided though. The new generation of Slayers didn't need them, perhaps the old ones never had and he had only ever been a misguided fool but what did it matter? An entire youth's worth of training and preparation had done nothing for him once he was out in the real world and now he was working for what was probably the most evil law firm in the country if not the world.
It was almost ironic.
It was almost comical except that no one was laughing and he knew in the soles of his feet that it wasn't sustainable. If the Watchers of all people hadn't lasted then nothing would.
That was just the way it went.