chap·ter·five

"Wakey, wakey, Wesley. It's no fun if you're asleep," a voice whispered, barely a centimeter from his ear.

Gunn, he thought. No, not Gunn. Not anymore. "I don't suppose it says much about your talent for entertaining when your guest can't manage to stay conscious," he replied, his voice hoarse from stubborn disuse rather than from screaming; he wouldn't give Faith that pleasure, and he won't give Angelus and the thing that used to be Gunn that pleasure, either.

"Ain't my fault our guest is a big ol' wimp," Gunn countered. "Angelus?" He called. "Toy's awake."

"About time," Angelus said, sounding bored. "You know, it's no fun -"

"Yes, I've been told," Wes replied, cutting him off. "And now I'm not asleep, so I suggest you have your fun before your incessant chattering alters that status again."

"Always with the snark, bro," Gunn grinned, shaking his head. "You sure we can't keep him?"

"If there's anything left to keep once I'm done using him, I'll consider it," Angelus grinned back. "For now, though, let's see if we can't use our boy Wes here to get inside Angel's head."

"If you think I'm privy to anything you're not, you're sadly mistaken," Wes smirked. "You, after all, occupied a corner of his mind all these years, while I merely work with him. I wouldn't even venture so far as to say we're friends, not without asking his opinion on the matter."

"You don't do anything without asking his opinion on the matter, do you?" Angelus said, after a moment's pause. "That's just the way he likes it, you know. He likes knowing you need him around to give the final say on things, whether you're deciding if you should take off with his kid or... I don't know, switch to a new brand of toothpaste. He's got control issues, and you feed them, with a damn smile on your face and a 'yes, Angel, anything, Angel.'"

"All that ass-kissin' makes me sick," Gunn added, circling the chair Wes was bound to. He cocked his head and went into a horrible imitation of Wes's accent. "'Angel, you're a champion. Angel, you're a hero. I'm your faithful servant, Angel, do with me what you will. What's that? Bend over? Yes sir, gladly sir. Please, sir, can I have some more?' Surprised you ain't given it up for him yet, 'cept that he don't swing your way, does he?"

"Oh, no, Gunn, you've got it all wrong," Angelus said, raising an eyebrow. "Wes here hasn't got a big fat jones for Soul Boy, do ya, Wesley? No, it's the other way around. That subservient act really puts the fire in his veins, you know, makes him wonder if you'd be just as obedient when he tells you to suck his cock as you are when he sends you into battle."

"Doesn't it bother you," Wes asked, turning to peer at Gunn, "that the very man you presume to be - well, if I'm correct in translating your comments as a jibe at my sexuality - the very man you presume to be gay, and indeed lusting after Angel, is the same man you fear will attempt to steal away your girlfriend, to the point that you endangered her life rather than let me know which motel you were... carrying on in?" His head snapped to the side as Gunn's fist collided with his face, and he laughed. "Hit a sore spot, did I?"

Gunn looked to Angelus for permission, and finding none, backed down. "Naw," he grunted. "But sore spots are a fun topic, let's stick to that for a while, huh?" The end of his sentence was drowned by a groan of pain.

~*~

It was a lot to process. Angel's entire assessment of the situation had been that Wes went into Angelus' lair, guns blazing, to save the woman he loved. Who wouldn't? That's just what you did. But if Wes wasn't all gooey for Fred anymore, that changed everything. That meant Wes was a hero - a champion, maybe?

But that didn't really change anything at all, did it? Because Wes had always been a champion, since he'd taken up Angel's cause two years before. He fought the good fight and all that jazz because it was the right thing to do and he couldn't turn a blind eye when the fates of innocents hung in the balance, just like Angel. Well, like Angel most of the time. Wes didn't have super human abilities, like Angel, or visions like Cordy. He didn't even have a blood vengeance thing like Gunn had, he just had Watcher training, which would have served him just as well at a safe job, working in a museum translating ancient manuscripts or something.

Backtracking... if Wes wasn't gooey for Fred, did that make it more okay or less okay that Angel was starting to feel maybe just the tiniest bit gooey for him? And by "starting" and "the tiniest bit" he might actually have meant something a whole lot deeper and way scarier that he didn't really want to think about while Wes was currently being held by Angelus. Assuming Wes was still alive, that is.

But Wes had to be alive, right? He's not immortal like you are, Angel reminded himself. Were. Whatever. Unless he was. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that Angelus might turn Wes, if not just to hurt Angel, then to keep as a companion. A lover. Angel kicked the wall, hard, as a wave of jealousy washed over him, and he realized how ridiculous it was to be jealous of a part of himself that had mystically become a separate entity. "Ow. Fuck."

"You okay in there?" Cordy called, from her post outside the bathroom.

"Besides a few broken toes? I'm peachy," he replied. "Will you go away now?"

He could almost hear her shake her head. "Not a chance. Not until you suck it up long enough for us to go rescue Wes. The Angel I know isn't a coward."

"The Angel you know also isn't a wussy, fragile human," Angel pointed out. "No offense."

~*~

"Come on, Wes, give us something to work with," Angelus taunted. "If you can't come up with anything helpful, I'll have to let Gunn here have his wicked way with you, and I get the feeling he's not much of a cuddler."

"Haven't got anything," Wesley groaned. "And Angel's not coming for me, you great twit. If he was, he'd have been here by now." His voice was tinged with something like sorrow, perhaps with a hint of jealousy. "Why him?" he asked Angelus, nodding to Gunn. "Why not just kill him, or Fred, if you wanted to break me?"

A wicked grin spread slowly across the vampire's face. "Because Angel likes him better than you."

There it was; the crack in Wesley's carefully constructed façade Angelus had been looking for. It came in the form of a wounded look in those intense blue eyes, and Angelus crowed inwardly.

"He's stronger than you are, a better fighter." It was a lie, Angelus knew. Angel had made a point of making himself very well-informed on the topic of Wesley's physique, although whether Angel or Wesley actually knew that was a mystery, and there was far more to this stuffy bibliophile than meets the eye. He hid it, and well, but Angel had a keen eye when it came to scoping out a warrior for battle, so Angelus knew that in a fair fight between Wes and Gunn - pre-vamp, at least - it would have been even odds. "Let's not even get into how he's already got the tall dark and handsome working for him."

"No, let's," Gunn put in, preening.

Preening? Gunn? Wesley stifled a smirk before allowing himself to wallow in his self-pity. Of course Angel liked Gunn better - Gunn had done stupid things before, but he'd never come up with a plan to steal Angel's son to save them all from a horrible prophecy that had turned out to be entirely fabricated by a time-travelling demon who now resided in the mystical equivalent of a Mason jar. He was handier in a fight - Wes still thought of himself as a clumsy, incompetant fool, the same fool he'd been in Sunnydale and when he'd first arrived in Los Angeles - and he was considerably more handsome. It was no surprise Fred had gravitated toward Charles instead of Wesley, however tragically that seemed to have worked out for her.

And it was no surprise that Angel, and consequently Angelus, would choose him over Wesley when it came to choosing a partner in death. Wesley didn't want to die. He wasn't sure why it bothered him so much that Angelus would rather kill Gunn than him, it was just that it would have been nice to be chosen, for once. It was too much to ask that Angel choose him over anyone, for any purpose, it seemed.

But that hadn't been the question, had it? He hadn't asked, why him and not me, he'd asked why he hadn't killed him outright, or Fred instead. Angelus had simply found one of Wesley's insecurities and dove for it. "Do get over yourself," he told Gunn, rolling his eyes. It was a painful gesture, as one of his eyes was nearly swollen shut where Gunn had punched him and it stung like a son of a bitch.

Gunn snarled, and Angelus laughed. "Okay, I'm bored now. How about let's play a new game? If Angel's coming for you, he's on his way by now, and if he's not, no big loss for him or the world if you die, right? So here's my game." He set about untying the bonds that held Wes to the chair. "Ah, ah, ah, no moving 'til I say so. I'm gonna leave the room and let you boys play. Gunn here's probably a little peckish by now, and I bet he'd just love to get a taste of that rich English blood of yours. But I'll even the playing field a little, huh? Gunn, give him back one of the stakes we took off him."

"What?" Gunn stared at Angelus in disbelief. "You think I'm gonna arm my next meal on purpose, you got another think comin'."

"Do it," Angelus snapped. "Unless you're afraid he's gonna dust your sorry ass, in which case give me the stake and I'll do it myself."

Muttering under his breath, Gunn tossed a stake onto the floor in front of Wesley's chair.

"Good boy," Angelus praised. "Now, Wesley, the object of this game is to stay alive."

"I'm familiar with that one," Wes replied, rolling his eyes again. "And thus far, I haven't lost a single round."