JustHuman

Title: Ties that Bind
Author: JustHuman
Rating: NC-17 (probably a little strong, blood and implied sex)
Pairing: Wesley/Angel
Improv: Improv #38 collect - balm - touched – find
Spoiler: Angel S3 - “Sleep Tight”
Disclaimer: If I owned any of it, Season 6 would be less depressing and Wesley
would wear a lot less clothing.  *Sigh * Joss, Mutant Enemy, assorted minions
and evil corporations own it all and I’m really not worth suing.
Author's Notes: 5 weeks was just too long to wait.  This fic picks up where
“Sleep Tight” ends.  Fred and Gunn have managed to get Wesley to a hospital.  If
for some strange reason you want to post this, just ask.  Feedback is welcome
Justhuman@slayme.com

The nurse hummed quietly as she moved efficiently around the darkened hospital
room.  She may or may not have noticed that her movements had awoken Wesley, not
that his sleep had been remotely restful.  When exhaustion overtook his despair,
his sleep was full of nightmares; knives diving at his face, images of Holtz and
his minions, and worst of all, the plaintive call of an infant that he could not
answer.  In his half-sleep state, he remembered Fred’s voice telling him that
Angel had finally returned to the hotel.  Holtz had escaped with Connor through
a portal to Quortoth, “darkest of the dark worlds.”  Wesley found that hard to
believe because he knew that his soul had become the darkest place in the
universe and Connor was not there.

There was the sound of the door closing as the nursed departed.  Without
warning, the chair beside the bed was filled with Angel.  Wesley had never seen
such a profound emptiness in anyone’s eyes.  He briefly wondered if that were
the look he would find if a mirror was handy.

“You’re awake now aren’t you, Wesley?”  Wesley managed a small nod despite the
cervical collar.  “Good, we need to talk.  I’ve been waiting a while. Fred said
that they had given you a sedative to keep you from thrashing.  She said that
you were pulling at your stitches. Were you trying to finish the job?”  Another
small nod with closed eyes. “Why didn’t you finish?”

Wesley looked up into Angel’s face and rasped out, “No right.  Your privilege.” 
He pauses obviously struggling with the pain of his injury now being aggravated
by talking.  “My life, a poor offering.”

“I knew we would understand each other,” the dark eyed man nodded.  “We’re
family Wes; you, me, Cordelia.  Gunn and Fred are getting close but they are not
connected like the three of us are.  You and Cordelia understand the darkness.

Somehow I thought it would be different with you two, that my human family would
be different than my vampire one.  If Spike had taken Connor, it would have been
for something completely evil just to get to me.  I get that you took Connor to
protect him from me.  Lorne found the translation on your desk, ‘the father will
kill the son’ and me acting like a strung out addict for the last few days.  You
don’t know, do you?  Lilah put Connor’s blood in my supply. That bitch made my
son smell like food to me.  We figured it out yesterday afternoon.”

It was like a knife in his heart and Wesley could feel the horror and anguish
rising in him.  When chocked sobs began to rise from his chest, Angel laid a
reassuring hand on his cheek.  The gentleness and calming that the hand imparted
to Wesley was in obvious contradiction to the anger and sadness now apparent in
Angel’s eyes.

“I know Wes, you did it out of love.  The darkness drives us to paranoia. In the
end, we still eventually stab one another in the back.  That’s what I did to you
and Cordy when I fired you.  I understand that pain of that abandonment now,” he
gave a humorless snort.  Isn’t it strange?  Spike has deliberately tried to kill
me countless times and it doesn’t come close to the agony you’ve caused by
trying to love me.”  With a tenderness he would have used with the baby, he
brushed away the tears falling from Wesley’s cheek.  Soon his hand was replace
by his cool lips kissing away the salt from the corners of the blue eyes.

Wesley’s remained perfectly still.  His breath was coming in short gasps.  His
mind refused to focus on the myriad of emotions coursing through his body, fear,
grief, confusion, and his desire for the man hovering above him.   Angel pulled
away a little so that he was looking into Wesley’s eyes; his voice was so quiet
that Wesley strained to hear it despite the closeness.

“I’m not ready to forgive you.  I may never forgive you, but I won’t stop loving
you either.  We’re family. Family is bound together and that’s about to become
more apparent.”  The volume did not change, but harshness crept into his voice. 
“You owe me Wesley.  Your reasons for doing it don’t matter.  He’s gone and
that’s all that counts.  I plan to collect every tear I can’t shed from your
hide.”

Fear was taking a greater hold in Wesley, and he began to beg. “God, please
don’t turn me.  Kill me, torture me, don’t turn me.”

Angel’s mouth was next to Wesley’s ear.  He could hear a low rumble and the
sounds of Angel sniffing.  “Oh no, Wes, I wouldn’t turn you.  No, I want your
warmth.”  He gave a short laugh, “But you know, you would make a good vampire,
just like all good watchers.  You’re already trained to fight, smart, careful,
paranoid, and yeah, the most important feature - you don’t trust your friends.”

Angel pulled back once again and looked pleased with what Wesley assumed must be
the guilty look in his own face.  “Cordy and Gunn will make you answer for that,
so, I won’t berate you.  I was the one that shouldn’t have been trusted.  I’m
the one you should have been staking.  I was counting on you Wes, not to let me
fall again.  Tell be why you didn’t do it Wes.”

The vampire was breathing for no apparent reason.  His face was so close to
Wesley’s that every breath the human took was filled with the scent of Angel. 
“I couldn’t.”

“Why not? Tell me.”

“I,” Wesley couldn’t admit it and just decided to sink into the dark eyes
pinning him place.

The voice that responded was still barely audible but edged with steel.  “I need
to hear you say it Wesley, and I’m not going anywhere. Tell me.”

Wesley was drowning in a sea of brown.  Wasn’t this one of the warnings from his
watcher’s training?  Don’t look to deeply into their eyes.  You’ll become
enthralled and won’t be able to resist.  Wesley didn’t want to resist.  He
hadn’t in over a year.

His brain flooded with memories of clandestine meetings over the pretense of
research or chess.  Bodies entangled, thrusting into each other.  It was an
occasional need for both of them, by no means a desperate love affair.  There
was never a jealous moment over other partners and only encouragements for new
lovers on the horizon.   But in the end, no matter who else entered their lives
what they had was something they could always return to.  “Love you too much. 
Had to find another way.”

“I love it when you’re noble.  I love you.  I just wish you weren’t so stupid
about it.  As much as I want hear you groan in ecstasy right now, I want to hear
you scream in pain.  But this isn’t the place for either of those and I need you
healthier than this.  Who else is going to translate the prophecy?  Who else can
find the door to that dimension so I can hunt down Holtz and get my son back?” 
With the increasing anger in Angel’s voice, the fingers that touched Wesley’s
check began to dig.  An involuntary gasp escaped Wesley and Angel paused to
regain his composure.

“How much blood did they give you?  You don’t even smell like you.  And this,”
he said sitting back on the edge of the bed fingering the collar.  “I need to
see it.” Deft hands pulled the Velcro closures and slid off the hard collar. 
With exaggerated care, fingers lifted the bandage revealing a neat line of tiny
stitches across Wesley’s throat.  Anger began to touch the brown eyes again as
Angel questioned, “How many more reasons do I need to kill that bastard.  He
marked you. He marked what’s mine.”

Wesley was trembling as the bandage was carefully replaced and the collar
refastened.  Those same gentle fingers traced Wesley’s arm to the IV connection. 
“No one is ever going to make that mistake again.  No one is going to miss my
mark.  Neck wound is too fresh, the nurses will notice the arm,” Their eyes were
locked and Wesley was breathing faster and faster as he watched Angels visage
change.  The blankets were being pulled back.

All of Wesley’s resolve to submit to Angel’s punishments was fleeing him, and he
tried to back away further into the mattress.  The vampire was having none of
that and soon both of Wesley’s wrists were trapped in one overpoweringly strong
hand.  The other hand pushed aside the bottom edge of the hospital gown
revealing a thigh.

Wesley closed his eyes and fought the fear.  In all their time together, his
sometimes lover had never bit him to take blood.  It was a binding act that
Wesley was not prepared for.  Over the last few days planning the kidnapping, he
had also imagined Angel’s response.  In his mind’s eye he had seen violent
torture and countless painful deaths.  Everything that he had envisioned drove
the two of them further and further apart.
Wesley had read the diaries and knew the horrors that the demon Angelus had
perpetrated.  He also knew that the soul that made Angelus into Angel was
capable of letting the demon have free reign.  The forging of such an intimate
bond promised not a quick death, but a lifetime of suffering.  It was nothing
less than he deserved.  He was responsible for the loss of Connor.  Angel would
need his research ability to hunt for his son.  The blood binding was only
appropriate tying Wesley to the outcome of the seach for the missing baby and
tying him to Angel’s misery and hatred.

Wesley suddenly became calm as he felt himself surrendering to the inevitable. 
He bent his leg and turned it deliberately so the artery that ran there was more
accessible.  During the time that Wesley was accepting his fate, the vampire had
remained still.  Wesley felt a cool kiss on his fingers as his wrists were
released.

Hands firmly held the offered leg as cool breath ticked the fine hairs.  *Pain
*.  A sudden gasp was ripped out of Wesley’s chest sending knives lancing
through his wounded throat.  After a moment or two, the pain was replaced by
relief, need, desire.  His fingers moved of their own accord tangling in Angel’s
hair pressing him closer, willing him to take everything.  He briefly wondered
if the vampire would change his mind and kill him.  Wesley didn’t care.

The exquisite mixture of pain and pleasure was overwhelming.  He could feel his
life sliding out of his veins and he could also feel that stolen vitality
pulsing through Angel.  He had a sudden understanding of those passages in the
diaries describing how victim after victim had placidly submitted to the deadly
embrace.  Wesley gave a short cry of protest as Angel suddenly pulled away and
began licking the small puncture wounds until they stopped bleeding.

Wesley had ceased thinking and was desperately hanging onto the feeling that had
filled his body moments before.  He vaguely felt an insistent hand untangle his
fingers from Angel’s hair.  That same hand held his and stroked a thumb across
his palm.  Wesley finally looked up into Angel’s face.  He didn’t understand all
the emotions in the dark brown eyes, but he could see desire among them.  That
was enough for Wesley and he took hold of that hand stoking his palm and pulled
it toward the collar at his throat.  Angel grip was unbreakable when he stopped
the motion Wesley’s hand.

“No, you have to heal before I go there.  Believe me Wesley; I’m going to mark
every millimeter of that scar.  There won’t be an inch of your flesh that won’t
bear my mark.  I’m going to erase every other claim but my own.”  Looking into
Wesley’s eyes, Angel opened a gash in his wrist with a small movement across a
fang.  He brought the bleeding wrist toward towards Wesley’s face.  Wesley
watched the ruby drops welling up.  He looked between the wrist and the ridged
face in front of him.

The vampire lore he had been taught said he was now a human pet.  The offering
in front of him changed that status to mate, although, that distinction was only
among vampires.  He was still human.  Whatever uncertainty he had in the exact
nature and name of the relationship, it was obvious that the man in front of him
would own him body and soul. It still was not a fair trade for loosing Connor. 
Wesley pulled the wrist to his mouth and tasted the metallic tang.  He watched
the face in front of him shift back to the human face he loved as he accepted
his enslavement.

“It’s done now Wesley.  There’s no running away, there’s no more suicide
attempts.  I own you.  I decide if you live or die.  That blankness had returned
to Angel’s eyes and the wrist at his lips moved with preternatural speed.  The
hand was clamped over his mouth and nose preventing him from breathing.  He
couldn’t stop himself from struggling as the hand forced his head deeper into
the pillow.  The other hand tore viciously at the new bite mark on his thigh. 
He pulled desperately at the hand across his face.  The edges of his vision were
becoming darker and all Wesley could see was those eyes boring into him.

**
The nurse was back.  She was humming her tune as she opened the blinds to let in
the morning light.  Wesley recognized part of the song; he had heard it at a
funeral for one of Gunn’s friends.

There is a balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole,
There is a balm in Gilead,
To heal the sinsick soul.

But Wesley knew that was like all fairy tales with happy endings.  No balm could
cure the wound he inflicted on Angel.  No spell or potion would bring
forgiveness to Wesley’s soul.

~end~