(UNTITLED)
DANIELLE FRANCES DUCREST
Disclaimers: Angel belongs to Joss Whedon, David Greenwalt, Mutant Enemy, Fox Television Productions, Greenwolf Corp., Warner Bros. Studios, Sandollar Television, and Kuzui Enterprises. Charmed belongs to Warner Bros. Studios and Fox Television Productions. Any copyright infringements were not intended. This story was written for entertainment and not for profit.
Timing and Spoilers:
Summary:
*****
He'd been drinking that night. It wasn't anything new; he walked, or took a cab, to random bars all over Los Angeles every night over the past several weeks. He'd never been to this one before. It was called Linda's. He hadn't seen a 'Linda' anywhere; the bartender had been a huge, dark-skinned man, and Wesley really doubted that he was called 'Linda.' It didn't matter if he ever met the owner, though; Wesley doubted that he would ever come to this particular bar again.
When he entered the bar, he ordered a few drinks and took all three shots to an empty table. He slowly drank all three of them while staring at the tabletop. He couldn't feel much of anything inside, and could care less about what was happening to the patrons surrounding him.
This is what his life had been reduced to. He'd sunk into this depression, or repression, and he had no friends that could help dig him out of it. He'd lost all of his friends when he betrayed their trust.
Wesley picked up the second shot glass and stared at its contents. Once, not too long ago, he'd been apart of something special. He'd been the head of Angel Investigations. He'd helped Angel, Cordelia, Fred, Gunn, and Lorne save innocents that Cordelia saw in her Visions. They'd been a tightly knit family; nothing outside their inner circle could separate them. They'd trusted each other.
Then Darla showed up. Darla, Angel's vampire sire. She and Angel had slept together about eight months before that, and Darla would be giving birth very soon. A month later, she died in the process of giving birth to a healthy human baby boy, Connor.
The entire crew at Angel Investigations had loved Connor from the start. Wesley had never seen Angel look so happy when he was holding his son in his arms.
Everything had been right with the world until Wesley found this prophecy that said Angel would kill Connor. Wesley didn't want that to happen, so he did what he thought he had to do: he took Connor and attempted to leave Los Angeles. But his plans failed. Holtz, an enemy who wanted revenge for sins Angel committed in the past, sent one of his people to kill Wesley and take Connor. She slit his throat and left Wesley for dead.
And now Connor and Holtz were gone for good. When Wesley's friends found out about his part in all of it, they didn't forgive him. So now, Wesley was no longer part of the Angel Investigations family. He was alone in his guilt with no chance at forgiveness or redemption. It was too much to bear at times, so he went out drinking every night.
He raised the second shot glass to his lips and drained the contents.
"Is this seat taken?"
Wesley looked slowly up at the speaker. He wasn't in the mood to feel surprised by the fact that he hadn't heard the stranger approach his table. The stranger was around six feet tall. He had light brown hair that was spiked in a way that reminded Wesley of Angel's own preferred hairstyle. He was dressed casually in jeans and a flannel shirt left open over a T-shit, and he had a friendly face. Wesley could have cared less. "Sit wherever you like," he answered. The words came out sounding scratchy and hoarse; that was all that was left of his voice now. "I'm not staying long anyway."
The newcomer took a seat in the chair on Wesley's left. Wesley wished he would go away and pointedly stared down at his third and last shot. The stranger sighed. "Drinking's not going to change a thing." Wesley gave him a questioning look. He smiled sadly and shrugged. "The depression isn't going to go away, trust me."
Wesley gave him the best glare he could manage. "You're very perceptive," he said, slowly and carefully. "But I’m not in the mood to listen to whatever advice you think I need." He quickly drained the third shot glass and pushed his chair away from the table. He'd go somewhere else where he wouldn’t run into nosy patrons.
The stranger laid a hand on Wesley's arms. "I can help you, Wesley."
Wesley could feel himself tensing when the stranger mentioned his name. He met the other man's eyes steadily. "I suggest that you remove your hand from my arm unless you want it to get broken right now. And then I suggest that you run back to whomever it is you're working for and tell them that I'm not interested in whatever deal they want to make with me."
His hand left Wesley's shoulder, and without any more preamble Wesley got up and walked out the door.
Leo Wyatt watched Wesley walk out the door and sighed. Leo had hoped that he could stall the ex-Watcher just a few more minutes. It looked like Wesley would be in need of his help in more ways than one that night. The Whitelighter quickly stood up and followed Wesley out the door.
*****
Once he'd left Linda's, Wesley simply wandered aimlessly through the streets of Los Angeles. He doubted that he would care if he ran into vampires, demons, muggers, or Holtz's gang; none of it mattered at the moment. His mood was influenced by a combination of depression and booze.
As he was passing an alley, as if it had been expected, something grabbed Wesley by the arms and dragged him into the alley's shadows.
He gave out a startled cry as he was slammed into a wall. He'd been expecting something like this to happen, yes, but somehow it still caught him by surprise.
He gazed up into two smirking faces. But instead of game faces, he found himself staring at two completely human men.
One of the men pointed a gun at Wesley's head while the other took out a knife in anticipation of a fight. "Hand over your wallet," the gun-wielding mugger barked.
While Wesley was feeling very depressed and drunk, he wasn't stupid. For some reason he wasn't sure of, he still wanted to live, too. Why he would want to keep going would be a matter of reflection later on; at the moment, Wesley slowly took out his wallet and handed it to the gun wielder's partner. The mugger whistled as he flipped through the cash Wesley had tucked in there. Wesley knew that it still carried a few hundred-dollar bills. He'd tucked those inside his billfold when he'd tried to leave LA with Connor, and hadn't emptied his wallet since then.
"We've hit jackpot, Randy," the mugger said, smiling.
"I'll say," Randy answered. He'd also seen the amount of money Wesley had been carrying around. "Okay," he said, turning his attention back to Wesley. He took the gun off safety. "Time to clean up."
Damnit, Wesley, move, Wesley's conscience screamed at him. So he did.
He tried to dive around the corner of the alley, but he didn't avoid the bullet. The only difference was that it slammed into his right forearm instead of his heart. The bullet's momentum threw his back against the wall as he cried out and instinctively grabbed his arm, trying to stop the blood flow.
Randy was aiming for a second shot. Wesley could feel his heart pounding loudly in his ears. He knew that there was no way he could even try to dodge a second bullet. He was going to die, and no one would even mourn his passing.
Bright, purplish light came down into the alley in a stream and was accompanied by a faint chorus of bells. "What the f***?" Randy's partner said under his breath.
"Doesn't matter. Let's just get outta here," Randy said before grabbing his partner's arm and running down the alley and out of sight.
They left Wesley behind to stare as the purplish-white light solidified into the man he'd just left behind at Linda's. The one who knew his name.
"Hello, Wesley," he said. He knelt in front of Wesley and raised a hand to Wesley's injured arm.
"And just what do you think you're doing-" Wesley said when he saw the other man's palm start to glow. He paused when he felt the pain leave his wound. Skin knitted back together again, and a second later, Wesley heard a bullet impact with the concrete ground.
Wesley felt along his arm. No evidence of a bullet wound remained.
*****
Wesley quickly stood up and stepped a few feet away from whoever, or whatever, this man was. "Thank you for healing my arm," he said. "But I'm still not interested in whatever deal you want to make with me."
Leo sighed. "I don't want to make any deal with you. I just want to talk."
"Sorry. Not into chatting at the moment. Now piss off," Wesley started to walk out of the alley.
Leo was about to follow him when he felt his wife, Piper, calling out his name. He settled for yelling after Wesley's departing back, "My name's Leo. If you want to get in touch with me, all you have to do is call my name. If you don't, I'll be back."
Then he orbed out of the City of Angels and back into his home, the Halliwell Manor House in San Francisco. He hoped that nothing would happen to Wesley while he was gone.
*****
Wesley collapsed on his bed. He was too tired to even try to change his outfit, and there was really no reason why he should put on a new pair of clean clothes anyway. He'd decided on the way back that as soon as he got a few hours of sleep, he would try to get as much information about Leo as he could. Why did he want to get information, though? Who cared if this Leo was a threat to him or not?
Lilah did. Wesley did, too. That much was obvious after the night's events.
Wesley had just shut his eyes when he felt a slight pressure on his neck. He opened them to see a man standing above him with a sword pressed against Wesley's neck.
Wesley released a startled breath and felt a sharp pain as the blade bit into the skin of his neck. Not again, he thought. He already had one scar on the side of his neck; he didn't need another one.
"I want you to give Leo and his Charmed Ones a message for me," his visitor said. "I've got something they want, and they can't kill me if they want to get it back. You got that, Watcher?"
The blade moved away from Wesley's neck and he nodded in affirmation. "And just who might you be?" he asked.
"Jonas," he answered. "If you don't give them my message, I'll be back to deal with you, Watcher."
He transformed into a hundred tiny black dots. They soared out one of the room's open windows and disappeared from sight.
*****
It was just terrific. He'd been fired from the most dangerous and life-threatening job he'd ever had, and even then his life could be threatened twice in the same day. Just bloody terrific.
Why the hell did Wesley care? A few hours ago, he'd wanted nothing more than to drink himself into slumber. There was no reason for him to go on. He wasn't needed by anyone. His family at Angel Investigations had forgotten about him. His own biological family had considered him to be dead for longer than the Angel crew had. Yet he still wanted to live. It was so bloody wonderful to realize that he still wasn't suicidal. So bloody wonderful indeed.
Well, if he didn't want to die, he might as well try to get in touch with this Leo person. First of all, he needed some background information.
He got in touch with every contact he needed. He didn’t have as many as he used to, but he didn't need them all so it didn't matter.
The Charmed Ones were good witches. They were three sisters that lived together in their childhood house in San Francisco. It appeared that demonic assassins tried to kill them almost daily but they always triumphed, or they did. The oldest sister, Prue, was killed less than a year ago in one of these attacks. Somehow, however, the Charmed Ones are still as powerful as they were when Prue was alive, which meant they'd had a fourth sister.
Leo was something called a Whitelighter, a guide of some sort. His sources were unclear about what kind, but Wesley guessed that Leo helped the Charmed Ones. Why Leo was interested in him was still a mystery.
When he was certain that he'd gathered all the information he could, Wesley returned to his apartment. He decided to contact Leo. There were a few ways he could do that: call the Halliwell manor by phone was one. Go there himself was another. The quickest way would be to follow Leo's instructions: call his name.
If it didn't work, Wesley could always try the phone number. "Leo Wyatt!" he yelled.
Wesley heard chimes behind him, and turned around to see purple lights transform into the figure of Leo. "Wesley," he said. He was obviously relieved, and he smiled a little before his expression turned serious. "Did you want to talk?"
"Yes, I do believe that we have something to talk about," Wesley agreed, his voice coming out as raspy as ever but still crystal clear. "I had a visitor last night, someone by the name of Jonas. Know him?"
Yes, Leo did know him. That, and surprise, was obvious from his expression.
"He said he had something you wanted, and he wanted me to tell you that," Wesley continued. "And, now that I have, I want you to answer some questions."
"Go ahead," Leo told him, all the while wondering what Jonas could have.
"First of all, I know you're something called a Whitelighter. I also know that you're friends with the Charmed Ones, three powerful witches on the side of good. They are 'charmed' because it's their job to protect the innocent, and they possess a book containing spells and information. Correct?"
Leo could only nod. Obviously, his charge had very good sources.
"A Whitelighter is some sort of guide. I assume that you help guide the Charmed Ones?"
"Yes, I do," Leo answered, "but I have other charges, including you."
"Why would a Whitelighter be interested in me?"
to be continued
