Angel's Apartment, Some Sea Caves and the Andersons' House | Los Angeles, CA | Night

[wesleynotponcy]

In the kitchen, Paige applied a bandage to Wesley’s neck.

“That was too close,” Angel said, pacing the floor.

Wesley looked up sharply, inadvertently jerking the cut. He pressed a hand to the bandage, wincing. “I let my guard down,” he said, hoping fervently that Angel would still allow him to continue. “It won’t happen again.”

“You’re not going back in there.”

“Angel!”

Angel shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. He could’ve killed you, Wesley.” 

The boy’s father sat up quickly, fixing Angel with fierce eyes. “And my son? What about him?” 

The table began shaking, and Wesley clamped his unoccupied hand down on the wooden surface. 

“Angel,” he said firmly. “We don’t have much of a choice.” Leaving this the way it was would just be proof that the demon was right. He couldn’t allow that. 

From the bedroom came a voice he didn’t recognize. An Irish accent, but not Angel’s. Someone else’s.

“The good fight, yeah?” 

The doors sprung open, revealing the boy sitting on the bed, laughing. 

Angel stood abruptly, tearing a strip off the roll of paper towels and wrapping it around his hand. With the towel as a shield, he picked up the cross from the table, though Wesley observed that it didn’t stop his hand from sizzling slightly.

“What are you doing?” the boy’s father asked. 

“Ending this,” Angel growled.

The elevator groaned and squeaked as it came to a stop and Cordelia stepped out, holding a thick wooden box. “They only had – oh, hi, Wesley!"

“Get it ready,” Angel snapped.

Wesley followed him into the bedroom, still holding the useless book in his hands.

“You let him die,” Ryan snarled, and it took Wesley a moment to realize he was talking to Angel. Apparently the Wesley-abuse portion of the day was over. The boy nodded his head in his father’s direction, adding viciously, “Just like he’s gonna let me die. Two great protectors.”

Angel steeled his face. Clearly he was bein fueled by rage, because when Angel pressed the cross down to the boy’s chest, smoke rising from his hand, it was with enough force to knock him flat down onto the bed.

Angel nodded at Wesley, signaling to start up the ritual again.

This time, Wesley was focusing purely on this when he started up again, and he spoke too quickly to allow Ryan a chance to interject. “Abrenuntias satanae et omnibus operibus eus? Omnibus pompis eus? Exorcie te. Omnis spiritus immunde. Adaperiae!”

“Now get the hell out,” Angel growled at the boy. He took a step back as Ryan began to writhe on the bed, glowing slightly. Suddenly a jet of light burst from him, jolting toward the box Cordelia was holding in the doorway. A wind raced through the box and Ryan collapsed on the bed, having reassumed his human face. Paige ran in to hug her son, and Wesley felt an enormous weight lift off of him.

Until he looked down and saw the broken box on the floor.

 “Oh, dear.”

--

It turned out that solving the matter wasn’t as simple as simply slaying the Ethros demon. In fact, when Wesley, Angel and Cordelia caught up to it at the sea caves, they found out something that rather complicated the matter.

“Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is?” the demon growled. “Nothing. That’s what I found in the boy. No conscience, no fear, no humanity, just a black void. I couldn’t control him. I couldn’t get out. I never even manifested until you brought me forth. I just sat there and watched as he destroyed everything around him. Not from a belief in evil. Not for any reason at all.”

They stared, taking in every word. Something about the Ethros’ words rang true. A demon that powerful, rendered immobilized in a child’s mind… well. Wesley understood how dark a person would have to be to create that.

“That boy’s mind was the blackest hell I’ve ever known. When he slept, I could whisper in him. I tried to get him to end his life, even if it meant ending mine."

That seemed to hit something in Angel. “You sleepwalked him in front of the car.”

The Ethros nodded. “I had given up hope. I know you bring death. I do not fear it.” His voice turned lower. “The only thing I have ever feared is in that house.”

Wesley looked up quickly. “Angel, he’s with his family. We have to hurry!"

And hurry they did. It was a short drive to Ryan’s house, and Angel and Wesley leapt out of the car to find smoke emitting from a window on the top floor. Angel closed his eyes for just a moment – sniffing or mapping out the layout from when he’d visited, Wesley wasn’t sure – and then his face turned steely-focused. “His sister’s room,” he breathed. “Let’s go.”

Angel dove out of the car and headed for the room in question, leaping onto a shed next to the house and then climbing into the window. Meanwhile, Wesley raced in through the front door and hurried up the stairs. 

Sure enough, the girl’s room was on fire, and Stephanie was screaming in her bed for her parents to help her. Wesley came to a halt in her doorway next to her parents, looking frantically for something to do to help, some conveniently-placed bucket of water to grab, then stared in amazement as he saw Angel burst in through the window and pluck the girl up off the bed, then dart right back out.

“Everybody out!” he cried to the parents, still lingering in the doorway with Ryan. “Let’s go! Go! Go!” 

He seized Ryan, unsurprised when the boy didn’t offer up a fight, and ushered his parents down the hallway and out the door.

Within the quarter-hour, the driveway and the street were flooded with cars. A fire truck pulled up first, and the firemen hurried up onto the roof with fire extinguishers. It looked like the house would be salvaged, though the smell of smoke was thick in Wesley’s nostrils. Next came the ambulance, and the paramedics took the young girl to take a look at her and treat her (apparently minor) burns.

 Then the police came, and Wesley stood by Angel’s car with Cordelia while Angel spoke to Ryan’s father and a police officer about what was going to happen next. 

“What’d the kid say to you, anyway?” Cordelia asked, sitting on the dashboard and watching the scene unfold on the family’s lawn. “Was it just your typical evil?” 

Wesley was silent for a moment. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said finally. “It just – rather struck a nerve.”

“Well,” she said, turning away from the scene for a moment to talk to him. “If it was anything about you not being useful, or whatever? He was dead wrong. You really came through for us, Wes.”

Wesley blinked. It had been a long time since he’d heard that. “Truly? I mean – that is to say, er – I – ”

Angel was on his way back to the car, and Wesley blushed and cut himself off. He did, however, look up at Cordy and offer her a faint little smile. 

“So!” Cordelia said brightly, slipping into the front seat. “Who wants breakfast?”

“Oh, yes, please,” Wesley said emphatically as he buckled his seat belt. “I don’t suppose you have any sausages?”

[[NFB/NFI, OOC-friendly. Some dialogue taken from Angel 1x14, "I've Got You Under My Skin," some mine.]]