The Assistant

by
Witling

Part Three

During the calm period that follows, Xander makes himself as useful as he can, which is either not very useful or quite admirably so, depending on your point of view. He does minor custodial work--straightening papers, reshelving books--and filters the bulk of the mail that comes Wesley's way. He's a secretary of sorts, Wesley supposes. Considering how much of a secretary Harmony is not, it's probably a good thing he's around.

He wasn't lying about his languages. He has bits and pieces of several things, most of them human, none of them remarkable except the Sayvu. High school Spanish, a passing acquaintance with Angolan Portuguese, a smattering of a Bantu dialect. He works at getting more. When he's not chatting with Harmony or shooting hoops gamely (and with terrible aim) in the gymnasium, he sits at the long table in the library and studies. Wesley politely disguises his surprise at the sight, until it becomes so familiar that it doesn't surprise him anymore.

He never feels like he gets Xander's backstory quite in place. Xander doesn't offer much information, and after a few attempts to pry, Wesley recognizes the rebuff for what it is, and leaves it alone. He gets this much: after Sunnydale, Xander went to work for the remnants of the Council. He traced African Slayers for a couple of years, then gave that up for reasons he declines to explain too clearly. He went into Council service, took a rank-and-file job with a pension. Someone still had to open doors and answer phones, and for some reason, that's what he did.

It seems like a strange decision, for some reason. Wesley realizes that he thinks of the Sunnydale group, the former Scoobies, as celebrities. They seem larger than life, too big for L-shaped desks and rolling chairs. But even heroes need to retire. Look at Gunn and Fred, with their house in the suburbs and little Jasmine almost two now. When's the last time either of them checked in on the status of the good fight?

"Well, that's bloody depressing," Spike says, finishing his whiskey off in a single shot and signalling for another. "God, at least when you used to be an entertaining punter. Now you're just a punter."

"A punter with a 401K," Xander says morosely, rubbing his eye. It bothers him from time to time, a fact that both Wesley and Spike notice and neither of them mentions.

"So how'd you get shipped off to the Sayvu?" Spike asks. "CC the wrong person on the office porn spam?"

Xander just sits there rubbing his bad eye, the good one closed, as if because he can't see Spike, he can't hear him either. After an uncomfortable minute, Wesley clears his throat and starts, "I've been thinking of trying a new vendor for some of the incunabula--"

"It was a pilot program," Xander says, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes and holding them there, then letting them fall. His expression is studied, as if he's taken a moment to think about this, and decided what he ought to say, rather than what he wants to say. "It was actually supposed to be kind of a cool gig."

Spike snorts and nods at the girl who gives him a new glass of whiskey.

"Noel asked me to do it," Xander says, looking at Wesley for the name recognition. "They wanted someone who had lots of experience with demons. And the Africa thing--they figured if I could handle Africa, I could handle the Sayvu."

"Funny thing about the Sayvu," Spike says to his whiskey. "It's not Africa."

"No kidding." Xander laughs without humor. "The Sayvu took the whole language exchange thing very literally. Except they were thinking less 'language' and more 'tongue'."

There's a pause, while Wesley and Spike frown at Xander, then at each other.

"Meaning what?" Spike asks.

"Meaning," Xander says, "that pretty much as soon as we showed up, they ripped out our tongues."

Wesley doesn't move. All of a sudden, his whiskey tastes sour.

"My God," he says, after the decent moment has passed. "That's--Xander, I'm sorry."

"Thanks." Xander drinks his whiskey.

They all sit there for a minute, processing that information. Wesley can't keep his brain from pointing out the obvious double horror--Xander has already lost an eye to violence. Losing a tongue as well is past horrific and well into a special, Wildean kind of hell.

"So what happened?" Spike asks finally, never one to let common decency interfere with curiosity.

Xander studies his glass, and again Wesley has the impression that he's developing his script, deciding how much to say. "We came back. The Council grew me a new tongue. Took about six months, and I still can't whistle."

"Just you?" Spike's watching Xander narrowly, like a gull scavenging for scraps. "Sounded like it was more than just you."

"There was a chaperone. He bled to death."

That shuts even Spike up, at least for a few seconds. A Fyarl demon takes the stage, and the intro to Faithfully starts up from the karaoke machine. Xander finishes his whiskey.

"And you say I'm not entertaining," he says, and spins his glass toward the edge of the table. Spike catches it before it falls, and raises his hand to the waitress again.

"This one's on me," he says. He won't meet Wesley's eye for the rest of the evening.

Xander fits into the routine, in a low-on-the-radar kind of way. Angel doesn't have much to do with him. There's bad blood there, and an apparently mutual agreement to tolerate each other in silence. Angel's busy anyway, running the business and saving the world, or select portions of it, at least. There hasn't been an actual threat of apocalypse for ages now.

Six weeks pass, and Wesley notices but says nothing. Neither does Xander. For a week or two Wesley has the sense that Xander's treading carefully, holding his breath, waiting to be sent packing. But by now Wesley can't really see doing it. He enjoys the Friday evenings at Caritas, the three of them drinking in the corner booth, talking over the week and telling stories about whatever strikes them. Spike tells good stories, Wesley has discovered. Sometimes Lorne stops by, never too busy overseeing his small business empire to spend an evening with old friends. Wesley is surprised to realize that he misses Lorne. He misses a lot of things about those days.

It would be better if Angel came too, but he doesn't. He's the CEO now, he hasn't got time to drink pointlessly and talk about what's past. Since letting Connor go, he doesn't have time for a lot of things. He's in pain, Wesley knows. But he's made it clear he doesn't want pity, or help. Or anything.

It's Tuesday, the eighteenth of May, six forty-five pm. Most memorable of days, in retrospect. Wesley looks at the clock, frowns, and puts a slip in the book he's using. Standing up makes him feel about eighty years old.

"It's late. You should finish up."

Xander looks up at the time, registers surprise, and frowns. "I'm on a roll here. I think I'll keep going."

"If you like. But we have an early meeting tomorrow, with the Waskin people." The Waskins want to donate their tablets, but only if they get visiting rights. It's a headache.

Xander frowns, glances down at the book in front of him, then makes a back-and-forth weighing gesture with his shoulders. "I'll risk it. I think I'm about to have a breakthrough on the past perfect, here."

"Fair enough." Wesley pulls his jacket off his chair and heads for the door, rolling his shoulders. "Lock up when you're done, please."

"Jawohl, mein Fuhrer."

Smiling slightly, Wesley goes out, closes the door behind him, walks down the hall, and takes the elevator up to his rooms. He heats chicken cacciatore in the microwave, and eats it in front of CNN, with a beer. He reads three chapters of a Peter Ackroyd novel. Then he brushes his teeth, sheds his clothes, and goes to bed.

Later that same night, Angel misplaces his soul.

It's not his fault--it's never his fault, Wesley reminds himself later. It's Darla's fault, or the Master's, or the Devil's, if there is one. But this time it's really just dumb coincidence. They don't find it out for almost a month, but it's actually the Council's fault.

There's been ongoing research into the souling of vampires for years now, with all practical experiments conducted in a heavily hexed coven meeting house just outside of Tunbridge Wells, England. The hexes are there to prevent any of the theoretical work affecting the real world. At eight fifteen Wednesday morning in Tunbridge Wells, one of the researchers suffers a stroke in the middle of a de-souling project aimed at increasing knowledge of the intrinsic relationship between soul and corpus. The stroke may have been enough to disrupt the hexes, or the researcher may have fallen outside the circle. Someone else may have rushed in to help. It doesn't matter. What matters is that the hexes are marred, and the spell is released into the world. And that Angel is the theoretical test model in that particular trial.

It all leads, far down the line, to more stringent guidelines and standards regarding testing procedures, but in the short run what it means is that Angel wakes up Angelus, that he leaves his apartment on the penthouse floor of Wolfram & Hart, and starts immediately for the White Room. The security videos show his progress, later. En route he meets no one--it's past midnight, the staff are all gone, and both Wesley and Spike have gone to bed.

When the elevator won't take Angelus to the White Room, he goes to the library. There are scrolls there, Wesley knows, and incunabuli and even books that, properly interpreted, would open the Room to him. There is also Xander, still on a roll with his Fyarl studies at the end of the long table.

This is where the security tapes get gruesome.

He doesn't let on that he's Angelus, right away. You have to know him well to see the little alterations, and Xander doesn't know him well. They've spent two months avoiding each other, and years before that in different hemispheres. There's no reason for Xander to suspect that Angel has become Angelus--there's no apocalypse brewing. Angel's been moody lately. Abrupt and distant. And Angelus isn't wearing leather trousers.

Knowing all this, it's still hard to watch the tapes. Come on, Wesley wants to say. For God's sake, wake up. Who do you think that is?

"Xander," Angelus says.

Xander looks up.

"I need a hand with something." Angelus walks the length of the table, his gait betraying him. If you know him well. "Think you can help me out?"

Xander's frowning, pushing his books away, rubbing at his eye. "What time is it?"

Angelus pauses, savors the moment, then says, "Late."

Xander stretches and stands up stiffly, while Angelus sits on the table and watches him do it. It's like watching a great white shark eye a swimmer from below.

"So," Angelus says. "How about it?"

"How about what?" Xander starts stacking his books, his hair rumpled, his shirt askew. "How about ten solid hours of sleep? You've got a deal."

"I was thinking more along the lines of, you scratch my back, I scratch yours."

This is the moment when Xander starts to suspect, Wesley knows. He's watched the tapes enough now--he sees that momentary pause, that hesitation. But there's no reason to be suspicious.

"My back's not itchy," Xander says. But he doesn't walk out, because he's not sure. Walk out, Wesley tells him silently. Just get up and walk out--

"That's funny," Angelus says, standing up and walking over next to Xander. "Because you look like a man who wants to be scratched."

Xander stands there a second, then makes a break for the door. Angelus catches him easily by the arm, gets a hand behind his head, and slams his face into the table.

He takes the codex off the lecturn and drags Xander down the hallway to the elevator. When the elevator still won't take him to the White Room--Wesley never gave Xander that clearance, there was no reason to--he throws a tantrum in the hallway. Xander, just waking up, takes the brunt of it.

"Can we fast-forward this bit?" Spike asks, from the darkness next to Wesley.

Without a word, Wesley hits the button and they watch in silence as the tape skips merrily through the show. Xander jerks and writhes. Blood spatters the carpet--the same blood they've both seen, the blood Wesley asked janitorial to please remove.

"Why are we watching this, again?" Spike asks, propping his feet on the console and nibbling his thumbnail.

"To find them." Wesley doesn't look away from the screen, from Xander's curled, flinching form. He feels as though he might throw up. "We're looking for some kind of clue."

"You want a clue," Spike says, getting up and flicking on the light. "He'll send us one pretty soon." Off Wesley's skeptical look, he shrugs and says, "He's a psychopath, remember? He wants to be caught."

That's too blithe for words, and not even accurate, but as it turns out, it's also right. It's not really surprising that Spike knows Angelus that well, Wesley reflects later. They have over a hundred years of family between them. Wesley could have predicted what his own father would have done in the circumstances, too.

As it turns out, Angelus calls. In the middle of the day on Thursday, on Wesley's cell phone, from his own. It's bizarre to see Angel's name come up on the screen.

"Hey, Wes." He sounds pleased with himself. "It's Angel, just checking in."

"You're not Angel." Wesley motions to Spike, who stands up and looks alert, but doesn't have much else to do. "Where are you?"

"I just had to take a little time away from the office. You know. Stress." There's no background noise--he could be anywhere. "I borrowed your assistant, hope that's okay."

"Is Xander all right? Put him on."

"Wes, hey, come on. That's kind of harsh, isn't it?"

"If you hurt an innocent--"

"I mean, I know he's not that bright, and he's not really your type, but you don't have to say that about him. I mean, he tries, right?"

Spike has better ears, so without saying a word, Wesley holds the phone out to him. Spike leans forward over the desk and listens in silence, his brow furrowed. Wesley hears a tiny, tinny Angelus-voice say, "Wes? Hey--Spike. How are things, Spike? You know, you could teach this kid a few things about Fyarl--"

"Yeah?" Spike listens intently, not saying much.

Angelus says something else that Wesley can't make out, and then Spike's eyes widen slightly. The call disconnects.

Wesley takes the phone back and stares at the screen. "What did you get?"

"He's near a freeway," Spike says. "And Harris is...alive."

"Did he talk to you?"

Spike looks away. "I heard him."

Wesley stores that away for further nightmares, and stays on target. "Did Angelus say anything useful?"

Spike shakes his head. "He's playing games. With all of us."

"I'm aware of that," Wesley says tightly. "That isn't what I asked." It comes out sharper than he means it to, and leaves an obvious silence behind. Spike keeps his eyes down, his jaw muscles tight.

"I'm sorry," Wesley says finally, dropping the phone on the desk and covering his eyes with his hand. "I'm...tired."

"Me too," Spike says. They look at each other. The phone lies silent between them.

Part Four

Angelus calls three more times over the next five days, and each time Wesley puts Spike on to listen for clues. Angelus knows they're doing it--he can tell when Spike's on, because he can't hear Wesley's breathing anymore. Each time he calls, he lets Spike hear that Xander is still alive. But nothing else, no way of knowing where he is. It's agonizing.

On the third call, all he says is, "The Pair-a-Dice Motel, Wes. Just outside Reno, on 80. I'm leaving you boys a little something."

Xander is curled under the sink in the bathroom, in a blood-soaked T-shirt with the neck ripped open, a pair of stained and torn khakis. His feet are bare. His skin is chalky. His blood has pooled against the edge of the bathtub, because the floor isn't even. To Wesley's first glance, it looks about an inch deep.

He's already lowered the crossbow--fatal mistake if Angelus is still here, but as it turns out he isn't, he's on the other side of the state by now--and taken a step into the bathroom. He should check for a pulse; there's still a chance. There's a first aid kit in the car. But the color of Xander's skin exerts a freezing power, and after that first step Wesley just stands there, staring. No one alive can be that pale.

"Get back," Spike says, pushing Wesley aside and half out of the room. He kneels down in the blood and pulls Xander's right eye, the good one, open with his thumb. It strikes Wesley as a grotesque, unnecessary gesture.

"What are you doing?" His tongue feels numb and clumsy.

Spike doesn't say anything. He studies Xander's eye--white, off-angle, staring--then lets the lid go and pats him gently on the cheek. Xander's face is bloody and bruised, but not unrecognizable. It's what Wesley finds himself staring at, instead of the throat. The room smells strange, he realizes. Like an abbatoir.

"Come on," Spike says, still patting.

"Spike," Wesley says, saliva rushing into his mouth. "Stop it." He's going to throw up.

"Come on," Spike says, and slaps Xander once, on the cheek.

"For Christ's sake," Wesley says, and then Xander rolls his head to the side and lifts his hand. Carefully, woozily, as if he's just coming out of a long, drunken sleep.

The pieces assemble in Wesley's brain, and for a brief moment he wonders how he could possibly be so stupid, after all this time. Then he thinks, I really am going to throw up.

He walks quickly out of the room and does it in the little white gravel bed by the parking lot. It only takes a minute. Then he wonders if he's going to fall down, because the world is dark and weaving, full of the rushing of cars on the freeway and the fat battering of moths against the lamp above his head. He stands there with one hand braced against the rough stucco, trying to catch his breath. It seems to take a very long, lonely time.

Finally he feels able to go back in without disgracing himself, and he does it. Spike is sitting on the bed, alone. There's blood on his hands and knees. The bathroom door is open, and through it Wesley can see that Xander's still in there, lying on the floor.

Spike looks pensive, as if he's trying to do a very difficult maths problem in his head.

"I'm sorry," Wesley says, wiping his mouth with his free hand. He's still got the crossbow in the other. "I...I don't know why I did that."

"Because you're not a monster," Spike says, but it doesn't sound like much of a compliment.

They stand there in silence. After a moment there's a faint sound of movement from the bathroom, and Wesley's stomach heaves again. He swallows hard.

"What do we do?" he asks.

"I don't know," Spike says.

They look at each other, obliquely. It's ironic, Wesley thinks. He's spent so many years becoming independent, becoming someone who can run things competently and without supervision, who can make decisions and call the shots. And now, when he knows exactly what has to happen next, he can't make himself say it out loud.

Absurdly, he misses Angel.

"I can--" he says, but that's not the way to say it. He lifts the crossbow and takes a deep breath. "I'll do it."

"Hang on," Spike says.

Wesley stands there with the crossbow lifted, waiting. Spike stares at the floor between his feet. After a minute he starts sorting through his pockets--the old, familiar hunt for cigarettes. It's irritating, at a time like this.

"What?" Wesley asks. "You know what we have to do."

"No," Spike says. "I don't." He finds his cigarettes in his back pocket, pulls one out of the packet, and frowns because it's bent. It takes him a couple of seconds to straighten it out, rotating it gently between his fingers. Wesley watches him, frozen like the tin woodman.

"You want to use that?" Spike asks, nodding at the crossbow. Wesley glances at it and grimaces.

"For God's sake, Spike, how can you ask me that?"

"Seems like you're pretty ready to, that's all."

"Do you think he'd want me to do anything else?"

"I think if you go in there and ask him if he wants a piece of wood jammed through his heart, he's going to say no thanks." Spike pulls his lighter out of his jeans and strikes the flint, lights the crumpled cigarette, and drags deeply. As an afterthought, he holds the packet out to Wesley. "Smoke?"

Wesley stares at the packet. Spike waggles it. "Take the taste of puke out, at least."

With a sense of things becoming rapidly more surreal, Wesley takes a cigarette. His hand is trembling. Spike has to dance the lighter around to catch up with him.

They smoke for a couple of minutes in silence. In the bathroom, there's a soft dragging sound.

"The important thing," Spike says, with greater force in his tone, "is not to do anything stupid. Angelus's playing us."

"I'm aware of that," Wesley says dully.

"Right, so we play him back. Don't do what he expects."

A tide of frantic disbelief is rising in the corners of Wesley's mind, and he recognizes it as hysteria. He's a hair from breaking into yelps of laughter, or just yelps. Grimly, he forces it back down.

"I hardly think," he says, "that strategy figures in to this situation."

"That's where you're wrong," Spike says, pointing a finger at him. "With Angelus, strategy always figures in. He expects us to stake Harris. So I say we don't."

"And do what instead?"

Spike takes a long drag of his cigarette and regards Wesley narrowly. "Take him home."

Wesley forces himself to look at the bathroom. Xander's managed to pull himself a few inches further in, as if he knows what they're talking about and is trying to escape.

"I can't believe we're discussing this," Wesley says, standing up. He has to do something--if he doesn't do something he's going to yell, or hit Spike, or throw up again. "He's been turned, Spike. The conversation is moot."

"I was turned too," Spike says. "I think that makes it pretty bloody far from moot."

Spike was turned too, and so was Angel, and for centuries they murdered and pillaged and brought agony to innocent people. But here he is in a substandard motel room, outside Reno, Nevada, smoking a cigarette with William the Bloody. And somewhere out there, Angelus is still at large. Doing God knows what, to God knows who.

"He might be able to help us," Spike says, as if he's had the exact same thought as Wesley, at exactly the same moment. "And frankly, I think we owe him one."

Wesley stands there holding his crossbow and his cigarette, feeling sick, wishing for home.

Spike loads Xander's unresisting body into the back of the car. Wesley wipes up the mess as well as he can, with the hotel towels. No point in traumatizing the housekeepers.

They drive for L.A. with the needle holding steady at ninety, and by the grace of God, they aren't pulled over on the way.