Champions and Ghosts

Author: Andrea/silentflux

Fandom: Angel the Series

Rating: FRT

Pairing/Characters: Wesley/?

Warnings: Slashiness

Spoilers: For the series finale of Angel the Series

Disclaimer: These chaacters are not mine...they belong to Joss Whedon and assorted studios who have wonderful lawyers who will hopefully see me as harmless... ;)

Prompt: Wesley; wings

Kink: Heroes (knights and champions; superheroes; samurai or ronin; super-soldiers; ordinary characters becoming heroes and characters overcoming fear with bravery; rebel/underground heroes; saviors and liberators; avengers)

Author's notes: Written for my LJ comm Rounds_of_Kink. Unbeta'd - all mistakes are mine alone.

Summary: Wesley's awake...

~ * ~ * ~

The red and juicy flesh of the ripened plum stared back at him from his still hand. The juices and large chunk sitting heavily – sweetly – against his tongue. This wasn’t right. He couldn’t quite remember why. Everything was sluggish and blurred at the edges and what wasn’t blurred was completely out of focus.

Where was – the juice dribbled from his mouth and a sharp warmth flooded his body. Wait – wasn’t there something… He tried to pull his tired mind out of the fog of warmth and sharpness, but he couldn’t seem to move at all. He grunted and strained with the effort, but fell back. He didn’t know how long he pushed and fought his way out of that almost solid fog, but finally it gave way and he was stumbling.

Memories flooded him and he winced. Reaching up, he realized the sharpness – pain – was gone. Looking down, he saw himself and froze.

For a moment he stared at the worn body, the unshaven jawline, not truly comprehending as the moment froze, sliced in half by shock and fear and denial. Before he could truly process all the desperate emotions plaguing him, everything snapped back together with an almost audible crack.

“I’m dead,” he muttered bleakly, realization grating against his tired soul. Who was going to help the others finish the fight? How could he not be there for them?! Growling in frustration, he glared at the sky as if he could force the Powers to answer him. “Bloody hell.” His murmur was quiet, almost as if he still expected his father to slap him down for the crass, ‘common’ language. What was he going to do? Obviously he hasn’t left for another plane yet.

Nodding in determination, he tested himself cautiously. He was walking on the floor, but he couldn’t touch anything. Shit. But if he was walking on the floor, that means he had to obey some of the laws of the physical world, right? Maybe…he was like Spike was. He winced at that comparison, knowing the blonde vampire would have laughed his ass off to see the ex-Watcher in such a state. Or perhaps not. Spike was a mercurial creature, after all.

Shaking himself out of his musings, Wesley snorted. When did he get so maudlin? He certainly didn’t remember being so over-sentimental. Ok, maybe there was that time in Sunnydale when he thought he was going to die…and the time when he rescued Cordelia. Er, when he helped Angel rescue Cordelia. Biting his lip, he forced his brain to stop its automatic whirligig.

Taking a deep breath, or whatever constitutes a breath when you’re dead, Wesley concentrated. Soon, he found he could interact with the physical world, but it seemed limited. Sighing in frustration, he put all his concentration into the next push. There. It wasn’t all that different from meditation – the possibility was there. He could do this.

He didn’t know how long it had been, but he soon gave in to his sense of urgency that had been picking at his nerves, his patience. He had to get to that alley. They needed him – the entire bloody Black Thorne was going to be fucking pissed and he burned with the need to stand next to his team and fight. Desperately trying to work out the logistics of how to get all the way across town, he almost didn’t notice. The shivering, utterly unnerving sensation of…apparating to the alleyway shot through him, feeding his adrenaline. Wow. That was…amazing. Did he even have adrenaline?

Stop it, he told himself. Concentrate.

He barely had time to think before throwing himself into the fray. They had sent…everything. It was Hell on Earth in that alley, and Wesley couldn’t have felt more at home. Fighting had been his life, from a lovely childhood filled with an absentee mother and his overbearing, abusive father to his work with Angel. Everything had always been a hard-won struggle for him. This was absolutely familiar territory – bad odds and good company.

Smirking, he enjoyed the fact that their enemies didn’t see him until it was too late. They were too focused on the corporeal demons and human fighting to bother with a spirit. He cut through the three demons in front of him with no problem after hijacking a sword from where something else had dropped it.

Seeing that Gunn was having trouble with his wound, he quickly dispatched several of the demons surrounding the younger man. Illyria was cutting a bloody swath through the horde as well as Spike – grinning maniacally through the stomp and crunch of pure violence. For a demon with a soul, he still fought like William the Bloody: reckless and deadly poetry in motion, fluidly eliminating all in its path.

Christ, was that a bloody dragon?! Wesley stared for a moment before realizing that Angel was violently, efficiently and joyfully making his way toward it. Didn’t the idiot realize those things breathe fire?! Shaking his head, he was distracted for a moment by the look of pure concentration and the wicked gleam that only appeared when Angel played nice with his demon. A shiver ran down his spine as the ex-Watcher remembered the last time he’d seen that look in the vampire’s eyes.

Wesley was jilted back to the present when the fire erupted from the black dragon’s nostrils. Opening his mouth to scream at his endangered friend, the former Watcher found himself flying and used all his concentration to land next to the vampire. Turning, he shielded Angel from the flames, brown eyes widening in shock as they met an oddly shimmering brown.

“Wesley,” the word formed and fell from those soft lips. The neverending moment seemed almost suspended as the former Watcher tilted his head and smiled sadly at his Champion.
Heat, heavy and soft, enveloped him as his hand reached out to stroke along that strong, perfectly smooth jaw, ignoring the dying chaos for just that moment. So much guilt and so much responsibility. Maybe that was why he had stayed.

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