Author ~ Marguerite
Title ~ Standing in Thunderstorms
Rating ~ R - NC-17
Timeline ~ spoilers to end s4, spec for s5.
Author's notes ~
Dedicated to: James. I’m such a huge fan of yours. I wanted to give something back. I hope you like it.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Claudia_yvr for the beta and advice on all the different versions of this. Thanks to Magpie for checking my voices.Challenge:
Story written for ~ James Walkswithwind
Two requirements ~ Wes, post s2
Two restrictions (optional) ~ no strict PWP, no het except with Lilah
Spoiler level ~ unrestricted
Rating level ~ unrestricted
STANDING IN THUNDERSTORMS
Wes stood on his balcony and watched the sky slowly turn to a vivid sapphire. The air was thick and humid; smog had settled over L.A. Tonight, it showed signs of breaking. There was electricity in the air, growing steadily, waiting patiently for the moment of release.
He could see most of the city from his apartment on the twentieth floor. The coming darkness traced the elegant silhouette of the high-rises against the backdrop of a restless sky. He would stand there all night, if he could. He wanted nothing more than to watch the events unfold, unable to stop them. Experiencing the chaos but not a victim of it.
"Wes."
"Angel," he responded. His voice was void of emotion. His throat felt raw making the sound.
Wes idly wondered if he should have done an uninvite spell. He always had the incantation and ingredients on hand, just in case. Using them tonight would have been vindictive and he wasn’t petty.
"Wes. Talk to me," Angel said.
The smoky grey clouds ahead moved quickly, allowing the wind to manipulate their movements. They rushed north, pushed by the southern blow.
A mist hid the separation of ocean and sky, indicating rain a few miles away. It had begun. A flash of light filled the sky off in the distance followed, moments later, by a muted rumble. He was right to guess an electrical storm. There was always a certain feel to it. It made his skin tingle.
"There’s a storm front headed this way." Angel took a step closer. "We should head inside."
Wes had no intention of moving. The light show was what he was waiting for. A welcome distraction for a mind desperately in need of one. He wanted to surrender to the power, give his mind over to something real.
"You lied to me," Wes stated. The wind had picked up. He raised his voice to be heard.
Angel leaned against the balcony rail, mirroring Wes’s stance. After a moment, he commented, "I had to."
Wes’s back stiffened slightly, but otherwise he looked unaffected. His voice was cutting when he spoke. "Let me guess. For my own good?"
Angel winced, ever so slightly. He never did like to be confronted when he was in the wrong. When he spoke it was an apologetic mutter. "Something like that."
Another flash of light reflected off the clouds. The moisture in the air began to cover their skin. A new gust of warm wind raised goose bumps on the glistening flesh. A small relief against the oppressive heat.
Wes was not going to let Angel charm his way out of this. "Tell what happened. You owe me that much."
Before Angel could respond, the sky opened and the rain came down hard. They were soaked instantly.
Angel shook his head, squinting at Wes through the downpour. He eyed the warm, dry apartment, but made no move to leave. "Trust me on this, Wes. Everyone will be better off if you drop it."
Dropping it would be easy. Closing the issue as simply as Angel had closed that cellar door three years ago. But Wesley’s mind swarmed with questions and accusations. There was too much he needed to know and at least one apology he wanted to hear before he could let anything drop. He’d start with the obvious. "Does anyone else know?"
"Lilah." Angel confirmed reluctantly.
"Lilah?"
"She made the arrangements."
Wes clenched his jaw. Of course it would take Wolfram and Hart to pull off something this big. He should have realized.
"And the others?"
Angel shook his head.
The cool wind on his cheeks did nothing to calm his temper. Wes used his tone to sharpen the edge of his questions, piercing through the lies. "How long? How many months of my… of our history did you and Lilah re-write?"
Angel cringed at the bitterness in Wesley’s voice. "Wes, you don’t understand."
"How long?" His clothes were getting heavy from the weight of the water they absorbed.
"Almost two years." Angel bowed his head.
The clouds began to change shape, storms caps burst from the tops, angry and impatient.
Wes fell silent, trying to absorb the news. Two years. So much had happened in the past year: Holtz, Justine, Billy, the Beast, Jasmine and finally Wolfram, Hart and Angel. Which parts matched Angel’s reality? What events, what people were pillaged from his memory?
It all begged the question of why? Using that kind of black magic seemed like an extreme reaction, even for Angel. Or, perhaps, Wes just overestimated Angel’s principles.
Icy rain slipped past Wes’s collar and down his back. He shivered, suddenly very cold.
"Wes, can we go inside? You can yell at me better without pneumonia." Angel tried to lighten the mood.
The dull ache in the pit of Wes’s stomach morphed into flames of anger. "We bloody well will not. You are not going to get out of this with a quick act of contrition."
The vampire’s temper flared. He took a hold of Wes’s collar and pulled him close. "You have no idea what you are talking about. Don’t push your luck, Wesley."
Wes struggled free from the tight grasp. Lightening flashed behind Angel, altering his face with shadows. The result was a demonic and surreal.
There was hint of Angelus there, a lack of control brought on by blind rage. If he pushed any harder, Angel would snap. Fist and fangs and fuck all else. Something reckless inside of Wes longed for it.
"You always do this, Angel. You think you know what’s right. Fuck the consequences. Fuck everyone."
Angel’s eyes burned with pain and fury. With a shove, his captive fell hard on the wet cement of the balcony. Wes struggled to stand with bare feet on the slippery floor.
Angel loomed over him. "You have no idea what you are talking about."
"So enlighten me." Wes challenged.
Once it was clear he wasn’t going to get an answer, he shook his head in disgust. Without another word, he entered his apartment. He was chilled to the bone. He went to grab a couple towels. It was easier to think of the immediate need of warmth than the tempest of emotions building inside of him.
He returned and tossed Angel a towel and kept one for himself. It was enough for to dry their hair and faces but did little to make them more comfortable.
Angel stood dripping on the floor, looking lost but slightly more calm.
"Let’s see if I can’t find something for you to change into." Wes said coolly and escaped into his bedroom. Well-practiced repression and strained civility was the only thing that kept the world turning some days. It was odd that his father’s prattle still crept into his brain sometimes.
He returned a moment later with a pair of drawstring pants and handed them to Angel. "These should fit."
With a nod, the vampire headed to the washroom to change. Wes stood looking at the closed door for a moment. Out on the balcony, doppelgangers of him and Angel were battling it out, purging like the storm itself. Just one more path not taken. One more future, splitting off on another tangent.
Mindlessly, Wes stripped out of his wet clothes and found another pair of drawstring pants. When he entered the living room, Angel was already there. He had flipped on the gas fireplace and was resting on the carpet in front of it.
Wes stared at the vampire, the flames reflecting off his damp chest. If he had any talent with oil and canvas, he would have tried to ingrain this to memory to immortalize later. He would love to see it again when he could look, untainted, at the repentant face in front of him.
"I used to love to dry off in front of the fire." Angel looked deep in thought, though Wes didn’t think it had anything to do with reminiscing about getting caught in the rain.
Wes gave a quick glance around his unfurnished apartment and headed for a yet-to-be-unpacked box. Inside, he found a bottle of whiskey. He took quick swig. The alcohol burned his throat and warmed his belly.
After a second gulp, he offered the bottle to his guest. It was odd, to be sharing a drink like friends when forgiveness still felt unattainable.
Exchanged the bottle in silence, the unspoken words hanging heavy between them.
Wes fidgeted; he was still wound tight. Part of him regretted having left the balcony and the potential of coming to blows. There were so few ways to communicate with Angel. Fists seemed easier than words at times like this.
"Wes, stop this." It was as much of a plea as Wes had ever heard from the vampire. It was laden with guilt.
"What went wrong?" Wes asked. The whiskey had dulled the hot fury from earlier, but did little to quell the need to hear a justification.
Angel didn’t raise his eyes from the amber liquid in his glass. He titled it slightly to let it ride up the side, but not escape. "Nothing went wrong," he said, finally.
Wes’ instinct was to rebuke the statement as a lie but he realized his error in time. "I had assumed that this was all because of Cordelia’s accident. An attempt to correct the situation. End the coma or avoid it all together."
Angel looked up for a moment in surprise, then understanding. "No. I had hoped that the altering would have change that, but it was not the reason I chose to do it."
Wes focused on the erratic dance of the flames, unsure how to interpret the new information.
Angel attempted to explain, "It was the worst time in my life, Wes. It was bad for all of us. Don’t ruin what we’ve got. I just… I need you to trust me."
Again, something inside Wes screamed to argue. That lies could never be better than the truth. That Angel couldn’t be right.
Angel placed a finger gently against Wes’s lips, as if suggesting silence was an option. "Please." It was barely a whisper, a tickle of breath more than a sound. It was the voice of a man whose insides had been gutted. A man who was very, very tired of pain.
Wes parted his lips to protest, but stopped. He couldn’t think of a response.
What Wes really wanted was to take that finger into mouth, drag his teeth across it. Have Angel hiss at the sensation – something between pleasure and pain. He could worship it. Punish it. Use his tongue to trace every line. Leave a mark, draw blood. After a fraction of a second, he pulled back. His cheeks flushed from the intimacy of his thoughts.
Needing to break the tension, Wes turned his head to watch a blind smacking hard against a window he’d forgotten to close. Outside, the storm still raged.
A strong hand grabbed his arm as he moved to stand.
"Stop doing that, Wes."
"Doing what?" Wes kept his eyes on the window. The noise grated on his nerves.
"You keep restraining yourself. You don’t have to do that. Not with me."
"Because I should trust you?" Betrayal etched his voice, carving it into a new sound. The noise of it tickled his ears.
Angel didn’t even blink at the bitterness. He spoke calmly, "Yes, you should."
Angel reached up and gently pulled the glasses from Wes’s face. He held them for a moment, his thoughts miles away.
Wes focused on the slightly blurry man in front of him. He could see reasonably well without the glasses, though he rarely tried to function without them. He suddenly felt very exposed.
"There is a ferocity inside of you that makes you strong. I want to see it again." Angel carefully placed the specs beside the bottle of whiskey and out of the way. "Trust me enough act on what you are feeling."
"And what if I feel like giving you a good trashing?"
Angel chuckled. "If that would make you feel better then, yes, you could try. Doesn’t mean I’ll let you."
Angel’s thumb ran across his jaw, a rough touch against the tiny stubble of a few hours’ growth. Wes tried to jerk away but a strong hand held him still. Angel pressed on the underside of his chin and Wes lifted his head at the implied request. Wes felt a short fingernail trace a line across his neck.
Wes had been touched by Angel a hundred times, an urgent push out of the way of danger, a congratulatory pat on the back, a gentle mending of a wound. But never like this. It sent shivers down his spine and his blood flowing south.
Wes stared at the window throughout the inspection, afraid to look anywhere else. He imagined himself closing the window, stopping the hammering of the blind, calling it a night and seeing Angel to door.
Instead he was still on the carpet with Angel’s cool touch wreaking havoc on his senses. The limited light hid his erection in the shadows. The secrecy was superficial, he knew. Angel didn’t need lights to read the effect the contact was having on his body. Again he was a victim to Angel’s manipulations.
Angel edged closer, the flicker of the fire reflected in his eyes. It was mesmerizing. Wes leaned forward slowly, drawn like a moth. Before their lips connected, Wes pulled back. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.
Frustrated and angry, Wes snapped, "You really want to know what I think?"
Angel frowned at the change in momentum. "Sure."
"You like playing God."
Wes poked Angel in the shoulder harder than necessary to make his point. "You want being a champion to mean that you get to make up the rules. You think your needs carry greater weight than everyone else’s."
He was inches from Angel’s face. Everything else in the room faded away except for his own bottled up resentment. "You are apparently atoning for your infinite sins, yet your methods are questionable at best. I can’t figure out if you are actually getting any closer to redemption at this rate."
He knew he was getting to Angel. The vampire let out a quick growl, but made no other move to stop the tirade.
The reaction only fueled the fire. He continued his rant, "You make rash decisions. Selfish decisions."
The adrenaline and whiskey were making his body sing. The words were flowing freely. "And you think you can get away with anything. Well, not this time. What you did was unforgivable."
Angel leaned forward, capturing Wes’ lips in a bruising kiss. There was something primal in the transformation of rage to lust. It was all consuming. Unstoppable. Their tongues took over the battle their words failed to complete.
Wes needed this. He wanted to feel it for days. He kissed and licked down Angel’s jaw, until his mouth was at the vampire’s neck. And then he bit. Hard. Angel made a throaty cry noise that Wes took as approval.
The vampire’s strong fingers twisted in his hair, holding him close, limiting his movement. It was meant to show dominance, but it felt desperate. Like Angel was clutching as if Wes might disappear any moment.
Wes bit down again. The mark wouldn’t last long.
Angel tugged Wes forward. Their naked chests rubbed against each other, hard and smooth.
A flash of lightening lit up the room, quickly followed by a crack of thunder. It went unnoticed.
A hand slid down Wes’s back and slowly dipped into the loose drawstring pants. Angel squeezed a cheek with enough force to bruise. Wes gasped in surprise and thrust forward. His cock brushed against Angel’s thigh. The contact was marvelous. So he did it again.
The two men twisted against each other. Scratching, biting, pinching. Checking what got the best reactions. Never coming close to tenderness.
Wes’s fingers loosened the strings and their pants pooled around their ankles. They were quickly kicked aside.
"I want you." Angel whispered in a voice that was barely human. Angel flipped Wes over, taking the position of top with Wes face down.
"Tell me."
Wes’s cock was trapped, pinned between his body and the carpet. He might regret this later, in the harsh light of day, but right now he knew what he wanted. Without hesitation, Wes said, "I want you. I want this."
Angel pumped into him hard and fast. It was harsh and brutal. The kind of sex that makes you proudly count your bruises the next morning. If Angel was holding back, he wasn’t showing it. The room was filled with a litany of profanity.
Wes’s head was pushed to the side and baring his throat. Pain shot through him as Angel’s fangs pierced the skin. Sucking, fucking, claiming. Wes came with a strangled cry and passed out.
***
Wes woke naked and alone. And incredibly hot. The temperature outside must have risen with the ending of the storm. It was far too hot to have a fireplace on. Every inch of him felt well and thoroughly fucked. His body pleaded for the mercy of staying immobile.
He grabbed around for his pants and found his eyeglasses by an overturned bottle. He shut off the fireplace, but didn’t bother to replace the light. It was almost dawn.
"Angel," Wes greeted the other man on the balcony. The floor was still damp and cold from the storm. It would heat up in a few hours when the burning July rays finally hit the west side.
"The storm’s past," Angel commented. His eyes never left the growing shadows cast by the awakening horizon.
The air was cool and refreshing in these early hours, a welcome reprieve from the stifling heat of the apartment.
Wes, trailed a finger across his fresh neck wound. The dried blood was flaking and itchy. He wondered if it would heal completely.
As if hearing his thoughts, Angel turned. "That’ll scar a bit. It’ll make you look… dangerous. With contacts and some stubble you’ll make a great rogue demon hunter."
There was something in Angel’s grin that Wes couldn’t quite read. An uneasy feeling slithered down his back and twisted itself around his spine.
Last night had roused a darkness in Wes that he had never known existed.
But Angel had.
The two men patiently watched the day arrive, hidden safely in the shadows, each lost in very different thoughts.