TITLE: Unacceptable Risk
SEQUEL TO: Fractured
(http://www.geocities.com/debase_the_beef_canoe/fractured.html), which itself 
was a sequel to Controlled Circumstances (version two) 
(http://www.geocities.com/debase_the_beef_canoe/controlledalternate.html)... oh, 
god, is this a series?  Please tell me it's not a series.  Anyways, I recommend 
reading the first two parts but you'd probably be okay if you didn't.
AUTHOR: Jessica Walker
EMAIL: williamthebloody79@yahoo.com
ALL THIS AND MORE ARCHIVED AT: http://www.geocities.com/debase_the_beef_canoe
DISTRIBUTION: When people want my fic it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.  List 
archives go ahead; otherwise, please send me the URL.
SPOILER: General BtVS 5; "Redefinition" for Angel.
COUPLE PAIRING: Ummm... kinda Spike/Wesleyish but mainly refers to Angel/Wes and 
Angel/Spike.
SUMMARY: Angel's acting psycho.  Wesley's all conflicted and confused, as usual.  
RATING: R, I guess...  Violent language, sexual reference, angst.
FEEDBACK: "To coin a popular Sunnydale phrase, 'duh.'"
DISCLAIMER:  The plot is mine and nothing else, blah blah blah, Joss is God and 
the "Grrr, Arrrgghh" monster could kick my ass.  Don't sue, I'm broke.
IMPROV: glow, rain, bound, crave
DEDICATION:  Donna, beta extraordinaire.  Of course. Duh.  Adoration to Sam 
'cause "Whispers of Immortality" totally inspired this.  And apologies to Av for 
SpikeWesleyishness.  ;o)


Unacceptable Risk
by Jessica Walker


"Someone has to fight the good fight."

I can't remember what the hell those words are supposed to mean, but they sound 
like something he would have said only a few sweet, normal, predictable months 
ago and maybe it's enough to shake him out of this madness that's systematically 
ripping us all to pieces.  Maybe.

((it's all right, wesley))

But he says nothing; I stare down at him from the steps, barely able to see his 
profile in the darkness, and there is something so hard and dark and furious in 
his expression and 

((don't get puritanical on me now, wes))

and I want him so badly that every inch of my body aches in frustration.

I close the door behind me and leave him in the darkness.

*~*~*

Cordelia placed the call earlier this week, requesting that Giles send "his" 
Slayer to Los Angeles to "jerk a knot in Angel's ass."  Her good intentions and 
self-righteous fury accomplished little; Giles finally called back a few hours 
ago.  No, Buffy can't  come.  No, she can't place a phone call to L.A. to talk 
some sense into him.  Something about fighting evil and family problems and a 
recent breakup and she doesn't have *time* to babysit Angel right now. Cordelia 
shouts, and whines, and complains about the selfish little bitch who doesn't 
care about anyone but herself, and Angel is in *trouble,* and no one's willing 
to do anything about it.  And I sit in my desk, shuffling papers and trying to 
maintain a calm exterior because Wesley's The Responsible One, Wesley's The One 
Who Keeps It All Under Control, until Cordelia collapses on the floor in a heap 
of tears and unorganized files.

"I thought I *knew* him," she sobs softly.  "I thought I *understood.*"

Didn't we all.

*~*~*

And somehow word of our current predicament got back to her new reluctant 
associate, Angel's errant grandchilde.

I meet him in a small bar-restaurant just off Main Street.  Peroxide-hair and 
black leather fade into the smoky interior but his eyes, when he glances up, 
glow in the darkness: a sharp, bright, biting blue that takes no prisoners.  The 
ashtray is already overflowing with cigarette butts and bottlecaps, and I can't 
help but wonder if he's quite sober.  Of course, Angel said once that Spike 
hadn't been sober in about a hundred and twenty years.

I know more about him than he realizes.

Not from books: although the poring of ancient volumes, scouring for information 
on Angel and the rest of his line, has occupied my attention since the dawn of 
my reason, those dust-covered tomes have little truth to reveal about any 
vampire.  The books  say nothing about the two of them hunting together for two 
decades; Spike didn't start making a name for himself until the Boxer Rebellion, 
and by then Angelus had disappeared from sight.  These century-old texts
barely mention Drusilla, only briefly bespeaking her strengths: a facility in 
hypnosis, clairvoyance, divination and spellwork.  The books say she's crazy; 
they don't tell how she got that way.  They say she hunted with Spike; they 
never explain that he loved her.  The books don't say to steer clear of the 
fingernails and never look her in the eyes.  No Sires
or Childer are mentioned anywhere.  No reason for the years and the decades and 
centuries they spent together is given, and they can't explain why Spike 
flinches when Drusilla's name is spoken, or why Angel can't let Angelus' 
memories of his Sire go.

Angelus preferred innocents- young men, virginal maids.  Darla preferred 
wealthy, middle-aged men and titled dowagers.  Drusilla liked children, and 
Spike had a taste for prostitutes and dancing-girls. And the books say *none* of 
that.  I am the one burdened with that knowledge, pieced together from a hundred 
off hand comments and dark, thinly veiled innuendoes; mine is  an understanding 
that transcends written history.  And the Council may have fired me, but I'm 
more deserving of the title than the whole lot of them put together. They are 
the Readers and the Thinkers and the Speculators, but I'm the only one who's 
been forced to sit back and *watch.*

But now, even now, I sense gaps in the timeline, missing pieces of knowledge.  
What he looked like in a frock coat.  The words he whispered to his victims 
before they died.  And the part of me that still wears the "Wesley Wyndham-
Pryce, Watcher" badge self-importantly printed on my personal identity feels I 
have not only the right, but the *responsibility* to know such things.

And that, perhaps, is why I am here tonight.  There are no solutions to the 
problem at our hands, and I seem to understand that as no one else does.  I 
don't want answers or excuses and I don't want to be told what measures to take.  
I just want to *understand.*  I need to find someone who remembers those days I 
can't see and tell me what I'm not allowed to know.  I

need this because I am not prepared to walk away, as Gunn is; and, unlike 
Cordelia, neither am I willing to stay.  Because I ache for a shadow of two 
archetypes that no longer walk in this world.  Because I crave a man I can never 
claim, and a knowledge that is not mine to have.

He looks me up and down when I enter, smirks, and flares his nostrils slightly, 
as if scenting me.  And then his eyes widen, almost imperceptibly, and I feel a 
shiver run down my spine because he *knows.*  He can smell Angel on me, even 
after all  these weeks, and pretense, my dearest companion and best bedfellow, 
is useless.

He says nothing as I lay my rain-soaked coat over a nearby chair and order a 
drink.  Only when the waiter cuts his eyes towards him does the vampire speak.  
"Keep 'em coming."

We're not going to get out of here sober.  And perhaps that's for the best.

He rolls the bottle between his fingers and blinks at me slowly.  I clutch my 
Heineken in nervous fingers and hold my breath, waiting for him to speak.

"Gone 'round the bend, has he?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

He chuckles.  "Just a matter of time, really."  He drains the rest of his beer 
in one long gulp.  "And it's driving you crazy, isn't it?" he says with a 
malicious grin, motioning for another drink.  "Never expected *this.*  Oh, no, 
not from Angel.  Not from the bloody do-gooder."

"That's enough," I say testily.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he purrs, curling his lips into a sarcastic smile.  "Did I hurt 
the little Watcher's feelings?  Did I remind him that his stainless White Knight 
is a fucking *vampire?*"

I take a deep swallow of my drink.  "You're not helping."

"Oh, damn," he says sarcastically.  "Terribly sorry." He taps another cigarette 
out of a nearly empty packet and sticks it in the corner of his lip.  "It's not 
your fault, y'know."  

"I never thought it was," I retort defensively.  

((we all share some of the blame))

He smirks and lights his cigarette.

"Course ya didn't."

((we should have spoken up sooner))

"He's always been that way, y'know?" he says, blowing a stream of smoke over the 
table.  "Gotta be one extreme or the other.  Best of the best or worst of the 
worst.  Bloody dramatist."

"But he has a *soul,* I say defensively.

((he's Angel he's good and he helps the helpless))

He gives a derisive shrug.  "Fat lot of good it's doing him these days."

((and now he's one of them))

He's wrong.  He's wrong.  No.  Not Angel.  He's wrong. Angel is not Angelus and 
Angelus is not the one I want and he's *wrong.*

I stretch my arm out to set my beer bottle on the table and wince when pain rips 
through my injured shoulder.

"Angel do that?"

"No," I say defensively.

He raises an eyebrow disbelievingly.

"But," I say begrudgingly, "he could have prevented it."

"*Should* have prevented it," he amends pointedly.

"Perhaps."

"It's his bloody job, isn't it?  Fight Crime and Don't Let the Humans Get Ripped 
to Shreds."

"So, when's it end?" he chuckles, leaning across the table towards me.  "When 
you're all dead?  When he is?"

"When Darla and Drusilla are, I suppose."

He flinches slightly but his face remains impassive. "Never happen."

"Why do you say that?"

He shrugs.  "They're bound, mate."

I look at him quizzically.  "Bound."

"Bound to each other.  Like death.  Like sex."  He brings his cigarette to his 
lips and takes a deep drag.  "You can't kill what you create," he explains, 
outlining his words in clouds of expelled smoke. 
"Can't kill what created you.  It's not a rule, per se, but a law.  The way 
gravity is a law.  It's like evolution, only backwards.  The result is the 
inevitable parent of the source.  It's how it *is.*"

There is no logical reason why that sentence should make any sense; and yet, 
somehow, it does.  It has something to do with the way Angel's eyes look as if 
they're aching whenever Darla was in the room.  The way his hands tremble if 
someone says Drusilla's name.  And yet, I am stubbornly, inexplicably driven to 
play devil's advocate.

"He did it once before."

A careless shrug and another stream of blue-gray smoke.  "Man can't be held 
responsible for actions performed under the influence of Slayerlust."  He cuts 
his eyes away, fiddles nervously with his beer bottle.

"So what's different this time?"

He chuckles derisively.  "You think he'd do something like that for *you?*"

His words send a cold shiver down my back, and I bite my lip in barely 
suppressed rage.  "Are you ever going to tell me why exactly we're here?"

"Down, boy," Spike murmurs.  He runs his fingertip slowly, torturously over the 
rim of his beer bottle and looks up at me with a coy smirk.  "I'm gonna give you 
some advice."

"What's that?"

"Let it go."

"What?"

"Let it go.  Let *him* go."  He grinds his cigarette out in the ashtray, and 
then turns to face me again. His voice is careful and measured.  "He destroys 
everything he touches, mate, and he's not worth it. No matter how mind-boggling 
the sex is."

I set my bottle down on the table and stand up abruptly.  "I'm leaving."

He reaches out and seizes my wrist in strong fingers, so tightly that I can feel 
the bones grinding together, and why, I think, half-panicked, half-confused, why 
doesn't the gesture set off the mind-numbingly painful alarm bells in his head?  
Is it because I *want* this?  Is it because I want this, the power I can feel in 
his grasp, that siren song of blood and death, and he *knows* it?

"Sit down."

And I do so automatically.

"I'm only going to explain this once," he says tiredly, his eyes flashing gold 
in the darkness of the room, "because I really don't like you all that much.  
But I've seen this happen one too many times and sometimes after a hundred years 
watching the same  soap opera play out over and over again gets bloody 
annoying."

I nod wordlessly and he releases my wrist.

"You love him, don't you?  Think you do, anyway- not that you'd know the 
difference.  Wanna do what's best for him, help him find his way back to the 
bleedin' light, and isn't that just too sweet?  Problem is you *can't.*  This is 
two and a half centuries of  emotional baggage you're dealing with here, mate. 
Darla and Angelus never made any sense to anyone, even back in the day.  You're 
in *way* over your head and there's nothing you can do for him anymore."

"So that's what you would do," I say flatly.  "Just walk away."

"Me?"  Spike shakes his head.  "No.  I'd get real creative with a branding iron 
and I'd see how long he could scream before his throat began to bleed.  *Then* 
I'd walk away.  But that's just me."

"Good God," I gasp, shocked by the malice in his tone. "What did he do to-"

"It's nothing to do with what he did to me," Spike snaps abruptly, cutting me 
off.  He glances up with cold blue eyes and his meaning is so clear that it's 
almost as if the name "Drusilla" were spelled out on the table before us in 
shattered glass and bloodstained razorblades.  I swallow thickly.  Perhaps he's 
right.  Perhaps I've no idea what I'm talking about and I should want no part of 
this.  

But there's a yearning here that goes deeper than rationality or fear.  The urge 
to be possessed.  To be his.  I begin to speak, and the words come tumbling past 
my lips, so fast I cannot stop their flow of poison and wanting and pain.  "But 
I can't, you  see?  He's everything.  He fills the room when he walks into it, 
covers the walls and seeps into the corridors.  I could spend the rest of my 
life in the dark with him and never miss the sun, and looking at him makes my 
chest ache.  Whenever I'm not with him all I can think of is everything I should 
have said but as soon as he's near I'm struck dumb. There's nowhere he isn't and 
I can't figure out how the fuck this happened."  I bury my head in my hands and 
start to tremble.

"Yeah," Spike says reflectively.  "Yeah, that's the way it usually works."

There is a movement beside us and when I lift my head, there is a bottle of 
whiskey on the table.

Well, hell.  I guess he really does understand.

"Have a drink."

I pour myself a shot with trembling fingers and swallow it quickly.

"Have another."

I comply, looking back up at him to discover to my surprise that he is gazing at 
me with something closely akin to sympathy... or the closest to sympathy I'm 
ever likely to get from Spike, anyhow.  When he speaks, his voice is quiet, the 
syllables weighted.  "Wesley, you're *mortal.*  You don't have a hundred years 
to get over him.  He's not what you'd call an acceptable risk."

I raise an eyebrow.  "And why do I suspect you're not qualified to give me this 
kind of advice?"

"It's sick, isn't it?"  He chuckles.  "It's a sickness... wanting him, it's like 
a disease, and it eats away from the inside 'til nothing's left.  Oh, it's too 
late for Darla, and it's too late for me, and God knows it's way past too late 
for Dru."

"But it might not be too late for me?" I ask acerbically.  This is beginning to 
sound like a public service announcement.  Don't Let Angel Happen To You.

He shrugs and lights another cigarette.  "No, it's probably too late for you, 
too."

A shiver works its way up my spine and I look away.

"You think this is love?  It isn't love.  It's being systematically broken."

"Angel wouldn't do that to me."  My voice sounds hollow even to my own ears.  
Yes, I realize how stupid I am.  No, I don't need to be reminded.  Thank you, 
sir, may I have another.

"Angel's never been all that dependable even under the best of circumstances."  
He snickers.  "You're like one of those halfwits that tries to raise a baby 
tiger and then is shocked as hell when it bites you.  And he *will* bite."

"Because he's a vampire."

"No."  Spike leans forward and affixes me with a cold stare.  "Because he's 
*Angel.*"  He laughs coldly.  "You can let him take you, Wesley, and you can let 
him fuck you, but you can't have what you want from him."

I bite my lip and look away.  "I'm perfectly aware of that."

"Then what the hell is it?"  He quirks an eyebrow at me.  "What do you want, 
Watcher?"

I raise my eyes hesitantly under his demanding glare. "I want to understand."

He sighs.  "You can't.  You're a human and there's forces at work here that are 
above and beyond anything you've ever known and you *can't.*  Besides, Angel's a 
nutjob.  Always has been.  This has been coming for awhile, and *you* just 
couldn't see it.  Because he plays good little boy and you idiots fall for it 
every time."  He gives a careless shrug.  "He's had his head on backwards since 
he left Sunnydale, it was only a matter of time.  He never figured out how to be 
two things at once and it's tearing him apart.  The bloody Dark Avenger doesn't 
exist, mate.  He's just a myth.  There's only Angelus, and he's a selfish 
bastard in every incarnation."

Oh, they tell me that, they keep telling me that, and why can't I just bloody 
well *believe* it?  Why do I keep poring over those same empty, dusty, wordless 
volumes in my constant quest for more and more?  Why the hell can't I simply 
just leave well enough alone? 


"What was he like?"  A hesitant whisper.  

"Who?  Angelus?"

"Yes."

His response is brief, but the single word is weighted with meaning and memory.  
"Remarkable."

"Tell me something," I say desperately.  "I must know *something.*"  Something 
about what I shouldn't want and can't have.

He stares off into the distance, and his voice grows soft.  "He'd drink Irish 
whiskey before he kissed me... he kissed me as if he was trying to memorize my 
body from the inside out and his mouth always tasted like Irish whiskey and 
Drusilla's blood.  Sometimes he'd bite my tongue.  Sometimes I'd bite back and I 
couldn't taste where they left off and I began.  He usually left bruises and he 
always made me say his name."  He grinds his cigarette out in the ashtray and 
looks up at me.  "Let it alone, Wesley.  You don't want this.  It hurts and you 
don't want it."

I narrow my eyes and try to maintain what's left of my dignity.  "You can't 
presume to know what I-"

"Can't I?  Haven't I been there myself?"  He settles back in his chair and gives 
a wide, frightening, joyless smile.  "Oh, I remember what it's like.  He's like 
God and Satan all rolled up into one, and he's everything, and the sex is *so* 
good and he's  the answer to every question and it's simple that way.  Simple to 
be owned.  He breaks you into little pieces without even meaning to, but he's 
*so* good at putting you back together again and you've never had a *real* 
lover, you've never really felt *good* before, never felt *wanted,* so you start 
to mistake the end of pain for the beginning of comfort.  But it won't last, 
Wesley.  He tires of the game as soon as it's won."  He leans forward, gaze 
pinning me to the wall, eyes wide and wild and falsely innocent and not quite 
sane.  "That's the way he gets to you, you see.  The hurting's not what breaks 
you because he makes you *want* it and then he takes it away, and by then 
wanting him is the only thing that makes you feel *alive,* makes you feel 
*real,* and when that's gone you don't know what to feel anymore if you're not 
in pain.  He did it to Dru, and he did it to me, and he will do it to you."

I stand up, throw a handful of bills on the table, and grab my coat.  And the 
alleyway is so cool and rain-washed and blessedly empty  but he is there, before 
I have a chance to blink he is there, silent, stealthy, and he paces towards me 
like a jungle cat, forcing me to back away until my spine presses against the 
building's brick wall.

"So pretty."  His voice draws the words out, gives them form, makes them a cold, 
living, brutal thing. He chuckles deep in his throat, tracing icy fingers down 
the side of my cheek.  "So pretty with your thick glasses and your nervous 
stutter and shaking hands... I remember what that was like, too... do you bruise 
easy, Wes?  Do you bleed for him?  Does he make you like it?"

"Let me go."

He pushes me back against the brick wall effortlessly with one hand.

"You want to be his bitch, don't you, Wesley?" he snickers.  "You wanna play the 
bad little boy and take your punishment, and you wanna wear those bruises as a 
badge of pride.  But it's not as romantic as it sounds."  He leans forward, so 
close that his  mouth is only inches from mine, and his breath smells of blood 
and liquor and nicotine and sins that I cannot imagine, and he whispers against 
my lips.

"He'll take you to pieces and there'll be nothing left in the end but broken 
skin and tragedy and half-assed terror.  He has nothing to give you, Wesley.  
All he knows how to do is take."

No.  No.  //Angel Would Not Do That To Me// and //I Do Not Dream Of Pain At His 
Hands// and //I'm The One That Understands Him I'm The One That Loves Him Not 
You.//  These are my mantras, these are my philosophies, these are the  words I 
will fucking live 

((and die, yes, probably die))

by and pretense is the sweetest companion I have left.  "You don't know-"

He shoves me roughly against the wall and seizes my balls in one hand.  "Don't 
tell me what I don't know.  *You're* the one who doesn't have a fucking clue."  
He squeezes hard and I gasp in pain.  "Is *this* what you want, Watcher?  You 
want sodding *Angelus* in your bed?  He'd use you and break you and make you 
bleed for days because that's what he *does.*  He destroys, he kills, he maims, 
he fucks it up beyond all recognition and it has nothing to do with the Demon or 
the Soul.  It's *him,* and there's nothing romanticabout it at all.  He hurts 
because he *can* and he hurts because he knows that eventually he can make you 
*like* it, and whether or not he admits it, he does it for *fun.*  He is big and 
he is powerful and *he* calls the shots, he is the Creator and the Destroyer and 
the most you can hope for is that you make it out alive and relatively 
unscarred.  You think *you're* the one who understands what's going on here?  
You are stupid and human and *mortal* and there aren't  enough years left in 
your life to cope with the damage he'd cause you."  He presses his body to me 
and I can feel his hardness rub achingly against my own.  He buries his face 
against the pounding  pulse of my throat and breathes deeply and it's not my  
blood he's smelling for, not the humanity beneath my skin, but something else- 
the cinnamon and leather and sex and death that lingers there.  He's scenting 
Angel.

"Oh, I know what you want, Watcher."  He pulls back and wraps his fingers 
tightly around my arms.  "You want me to rip your clothes off and bugger you 
blind. You want to be bitten and bruised and you want to close your eyes and 
pretend I'm *him*- not Angel, not your boss, not the bloody Dark Avenger, but 
*him.*  You'll never admit it, you're the fucking *good* guy, but that doesn't 
change the goddamn fact that you want to skate that line between good and evil 
and swim in that blackness you see in his eyes and be able to say that you lived 
to tell the tale."  He loosens his grip slightly and gives a sick laugh.  "But 
none of  that matters, you see, because this isn't about what *you* want, it 
isn't about you or me, it's not about Buffy, it's not about Dru, and it sure as 
hell isn't about his bitch of a Sire.  It's about *him.*  His redemption and his 
suffering and the ragged, bloody  wounds on his precious, stupid little soul.  
Without him, you'd be in a library somewhere sipping tea, and I'd be a hundred 
years dead, and neither of us would have a fucking clue about what *wanting* 
really feels like because you can't know until you've wanted *him.*"  He 
releases me abruptly.  "Don't you get it?  We're players.  Players in his bloody 
tragic opera. That's all."

And he's close to me, so close, his searing blue eyes a force all their own, 
flashing quickly to gold.  I can hear my terrified heartbeat pounding in my ears 
and all the government implants in the world aren't enough to drive away my fear 
but you wanted this, you *wanted* this, Wesley, you wanted to touch that 
darkness and know the nature of that Beast and 

((we all share some of the blame))

and I can feel his closeness in spite of breath or heat, sense the presence of 
that power and smell the Angel-Scent many centuries old and lips so close to my 
own and I *asked* for this, didn't I?  I wanted that knowledge.  But as I wait 
in the darkness behind my eyelids, trembling, my only recompense is stillness 
and silence.

And when I finally open my eyes again he is gone.

~Finis

Feedback is adored! williamthebloody79@yahoo.com