Title: One Step Forward (Follows Small Steps and Two Steps Back)
Author: Meredith
Email: stakebait@hotmail.com
Pairing: Buffy/Wesley
Rating: R
Disclaimer: All belongs to Mutant Enemy/Fox/Joss et al. I merely like to play in the no-network’s-land of crossover.
Spoilers: Up through Deep Down (Angel 4.1) and Beneath You (Buffy 7.2), after which canon and I go our separate ways.
Dedication: For minim_calibre, who issued the challenge. Many thanks to Olwen and Wolfling for the beta read!
Summary: Buffy makes an unexpected gesture, and Wesley comes to a decision.
Category: Drama
Author's comments: Third story of four.


"I'm not asking you to forgive him, Angel." Buffy's voice sounded more tired than anything else. Wesley remembered the feeling.

His first impulse was to burst in - a bit melodramatic, considering he'd never found the office locked, but appropriate to his mood - and rip the phone from the wall. Or, even more effectively, simply depress the button that would disconnect the call.

Wesley hesitated, his hand on the door knob. He had learned rather thoroughly to distrust first impulses. And if Buffy had already progressed to tired - with a detour through shouting, if he knew her at all - it was far too late to contain the damage. Perhaps, if he could at least manage to contain himself, he could glean some useful information. Such as how Buffy felt about Angel, these days.

If pressed, Wesley would have to admit that he wasn't certain just how that information could be used, but that was of minor importance. If you knew people's feelings, you knew their weakness, and you could, oh, call it up and deliver the information in a neatly gift wrapped package. As for example.

He realized that if Buffy had said anything else, he'd missed it. His hand tightened on the cool metal. He would have to do better.

"Because he needs you! Look, if I could do it, I would."

She didn't, some detached part of Wesley noted, sound entirely convincing. Do what, he wondered. Forgiving him was out, and he sincerely doubted, recent escapades notwithstanding, that she had bothered called Los Angeles - albeit on the school's dime - to ask Angel to shag him breathless.

Although if she had, he'd give almost anything he had left to see the vampire's face.

"You're the only one who knows what it's like."

Not sex, then. If she didn't know by now, she just wasn't paying attention. Wesley ruthlessly clamped down on the attractive mental images of how to rectify that situation.

"Where would you be if I had thought like that, huh? Or Giles, or Willow? He deserves a second chance."

Oh dear lord, save him from do-gooder girls who were far, far too young to understand how the world worked. Or possibly even a can opener. Wesley was forcibly reminded of Fred's little "you're a good man" speech, delivered, now he came to think of it, through another door he was doing his level best not to open.

Really, he thought irritably at the Powers, at some point it ceases to be irony and becomes simply lazy. If you're going to rub salt in my wounds, you might put a bit of effort in. Even Angelus had that much courtesy.

"Takes one to know one."

Wesley allowed himself a silent chuckle. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly Angel and Buffy, the Romeo and Juliet of modern demonology, descended to the level of schoolyard taunts.

"I never thought I'd have to."

He couldn't deduce the other end of that exchange. Lacking Angel's acute hearing, Wesley wished he could simply locate an extension and listen in, but so far as he was aware, only Wood's phone had that ability, and considering the principal's office was just beyond hers, Buffy would be bound to notice his entrance. He reproached himself for not planting a suitable listening device weeks ago. Without Lilah he was going soft.

Not literally, of course. Buffy was a more than adequate substitute in that respect, perhaps even an improvement. But he missed the lawyer: she would have sold him out to Angel or anyone else in a heartbeat, but she wouldn't have imagined it was to his benefit, any more than he would invite her superiors to stage an intervention. She understood the rules of the game: understood, too, that they were on opposite sides.

"I'm sure."

"Please." Buffy wasn't precisely begging, but she was closer to it than he had ever heard her, and Wesley was distracted from his anger again.

For a moment. The words "Thank you, Angel," uttered in a moved tone had much the same salutary effect on his libido as a pitcher of ice water to the chest.

Of course Angel had caved – when did he not, where Buffy was concerned? Nonetheless, Wesley found himself, of all things, vaguely offended. Something his erstwhile friend had been willing to kill him over in cold blood - not that Angel had any other kind - ought to be proof against the blandishments of his ex-girlfriend.

He turned the knob and entered.

"Well, that was educational," he commented conversationally.

Buffy looked up at him and smiled in what appeared to be surprise. Wesley assumed the surprise, at least, was genuine.

"Wes! You're early." Buffy glanced at the clock on her computer screen. "Or no. I guess that took longer than I expected. Sorry."

Wesley ignored the apology, if you could even call it such.

"Tell me one thing," he invited, his tone level. "Why did you choose today, of all days. Is it a form of contempt, or merely guilt?"

A stricken look in her eyes told him the latter had struck home, even as she assumed an air of injured innocence.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Buffy, please."

Buffy's eyes flashed. "Look, you ran away. I can't. What do you want from me? I'm doing the best I can."

Wesley's voice was like ice. "Did it never occur to you to do nothing? That you might do more harm than good? That it wasn't, in fact, your place to do anything?"

Buffy rose from behind the desk and glared at him, her hands akimbo on her hips.

"You think this is my idea of a good time? 'Cause there's not enough no in California. I didn't ask for this responsibility."

Wesley glanced about the empty office. "I don't see anyone forcing it upon you."

"You mean besides you?"

Wesley slammed his hand down on Buffy's desk. "I asked you to listen. If that was too taxing for your powers, you could have simply declined. Contrary to your apparent belief, betrayal was not the only option."

Wesley realized those words might, in some lights, be considered ironic coming from him, but he was too angry to care.

"Melodramatic much? There will be talking. And okay probably yelling, and maybe some awkward silences if I know my... if I know Angel. That's not exactly the end of the world."

"It is to me." His voice was rough.

Buffy stared at him.

"Why?" She asked finally.

It was the honest incredulity in her voice that finally broke him. He started to laugh, soundlessly, his shoulders shaking with it.

"I can't believe..." he gasped out, when he could speak at last, "you did it again."

"Did what?" Buffy strode towards him and punctuated her exasperated words with a hard poke to his chest.

Wesley closed the remaining distance and spat the words in her face. "Ruined my life."

Buffy didn't even have the grace to look shamefaced, just blank. She blinked several times, and then said, "I wasn't talking about you, you moron!"

Wesley blinked. "You -- I -- pardon?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Hey, center of the universe guy. Spike. I'm sending Angel Spike, so he can teach him how to live with the soul."

Wesley considered that, buying time to let the red rage that still coursed through his veins slowly drain off a bit. His knees were shaking with how close he'd come to actions not unlike those Billy had brought out in him – and this time, without even that slender thread of an excuse.

"He doesn't know about you." Buffy looked up into his eyes, and Wesley tried not to flinch. "And he doesn't know about us."

Wesley tried not to flinch again, but this time for an entirely different reason. "Because you're ashamed to be screwing the man who stole his child. I can understand that, I suppose. It's hardly what one expects of a soul mate, is it?"

Buffy dropped her hands in exasperation. "I can't win with you. If I tell Angel about you, I'm a coward or a manipulative bitch. If I don't tell Angel about you, I'm a coward and a manipulative bitch. Newsflash, Wes, I may be a coward but I don't do manipulative. Not on purpose. Its like chess, you have to think about 8 moves ahead and it gets all confusing. I'm more of a... ping pong kind of girl."

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Wesley found he couldn't help a small, incredulous smile. "Ping Pong?"

"Sure. It's light, it's fast, and you don't have time to think -- you just react and keep the ball in the air."

Wesley quirked an eyebrow upward. "So that's what you're doing with me? Just... reacting?"

Buffy cocked her head to the side. "Nope. Sometimes I act."

She walked away from him. Wesley couldn't blame her. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a small padded envelope covered in British stamps. Wesley's eyes passed rapidly over them and then dropped automatically into a half-lidded posture of boredom, hoping to conceal the sudden knot in his stomach. Anything from that source could only overturn his hard-won tranquility yet again – or try to.

"Orders from the Council?" He made what he hoped was a casual gesture. "Or just a going away present for your exiled vampire?"

In answer, Buffy upended the thing. A surprisingly large wad of bubble wrap fell out and began to uncurl. Impatiently she tore the plastic and exposed two slender vials of golden liquid and a hypodermic needle. She palmed a single dose and held the other out to Wesley.

"A staying here present for my exiled Watcher."

A warm rush of feeling went through Wesley at those words. It was the first time she'd ever called him that, since he'd returned.

Buffy actually looked a trifle uncertain. "Or -- whatever."

"Very articulate. What is it? Poison?"

He was joking, more or less. But Buffy nodded. "Sort of. It's" -- she picked up the handwritten note that had also slipped from the envelope and read carefully -- "an organic compound of muscle relaxants and adrenal suppressers."

Wesley froze. He'd heard those words before. Precisely those words, in fact. He'd recorded them in, yes, in a leather-bound journal. Deep blue ink. Bottom third of a right hand page, under -- he had it. He jerked his reaching hand away.

"What on earth?"

"Giles sent it."

"Because your 21st birthday is approaching? Apart from any other consideration, I'd say the element of surprise has been lost."

"Because I asked him to."

Wesley wondered if Buffy was being deliberately obtuse.

"And why would you do that?"

"I told you. For you. To prove I trust you."

The last, irrational dregs of anger left him then and he had to catch himself against the desk. "I told you not to."

When he still made no move to take it, Buffy slipped the vial into the pocket of his jacket, caught up her purse and started toward the door. She looked back over her shoulder. "Since when do I listen to you?"

**********

Buffy made a soft, lost sound. "Please?"

Wesley only smiled, admiring all over again the way her taut body moved. Her breath was quick with fear or arousal; Wesley doubted she could tell them apart any more. Certainly he couldn’t.

He bent his head to give another, oh-so-gentle lick at the skin just above her clit. She tasted of salt, and soap, and the musk base that was all that was left of her perfume. Whatever notes of flowers or freshness it had possessed were long gone, but he liked to think of her scrambling to dress in the morning, still taking a moment to stroke one scented finger along the inner fold of her thigh and think of him. He traced it with his tongue.

"Wes?" She sounded so young. "Wes, I don’t think you’ve really got the point of the whole bondage thing here."

Wesley smiled, although he knew she couldn’t see it through the white silk scarf that lay –draped, but not tied – across her eyes. "Oh, I think I have."

He gave her cunt another flickering lick and then a soft, thorough, kiss.

She sighed with pleasure, and raised her hips, but he backed off, playfully, keeping the distance constant between them so that only the tip of his tongue touched her, and that lightly. Buffy whimpered.

"Shouldn’t there be, you know, chains?"

Wesley glanced up at the ties that bound Buffy to his bed. "I’m sorry, I neglected to pack those." He informed her.

"Which is why we have Home Depot. Okay, they’re mostly used to the midnight lumber runs with Xander, but I’ve been known to branch out occasionally."

A blush crept up to the edges of the blindfold, contrasting with the crisp clean cloth, and spread down her neck to mottle the tops of her breasts. Wesley found it enchanting.

"Do that again."

"What, complain? Okay." Buffy was deliberately misunderstanding him, but he let her get away with it this time. "Shouldn’t there be whips and knives and, you know, sex?" Her voice rose to a frustrated whine on the last word.

He stroked her skin with soothing, cool fingertips until her flush subsided.

"Sssssh, patience."

"Which is a virtue I’ve had since never."

Wesley whispered his lips over her nipple. "You don’t have a choice."

Buffy shivered. "Wes?"

"Yes?"

"Kiss me?"

He did, long and soft, so she could taste her own juices on his lips, then kissed his way back down her body to resume tormenting her with slow, rhythmless licks and nibbles. She was squirming shamelessly beneath him, bucking her hips in a futile search for friction from his nails, teeth, something. He could feel the tension vibrating through her frame.

"Just let it happen. There’s nothing you can do now."

And weren’t those loaded words to choose, for both of them. But Wesley’s tone was low and coaxing, and when Buffy barely breathed an echo of "nothing", she didn’t sound angry. Wesley slipped a single finger inside her and found her slick and hot. He held it motionless as he went to work in earnest at last: not a distraction, or an invasion, only something to grab onto if she still felt empty. Even in his urgency his mouth was still gentle on her skin.

Buffy held on tight. When she came, it was with a long, low moan, like a train in the night, rather than the abrupt and strangled cry he remembered. And then it came, the moment he’d been quietly, breathlessly (patiently) hoping for – she relaxed. Completely, as he’d only seen her in sleep, and then not long. Her skin was still pink; her thigh lay warm and loose against his cheek. He nuzzled her, slowly, careful to make no sudden moves.

She did shift a bit, but only to release the fists she’d made in the cloth that bound her, and work her fingers till the blood began to flow again. The blindfold had slipped to the pillow, then the floor sometime during her orgasm: Wesley made a mental note to use velvet instead, next time. He could pick up something at the mall: considering the current state of his ties, Wes strongly suspected a shopping trip would be in order, if he wished to appear presentable on Monday.

It was indubitably worth it. Buffy looked as though she’d melted into the garishly flowered coverlet. He wondered if she’d fallen asleep.

Wesley slid up over her to press a kiss into the crook of her elbow. Only the tiniest red dot proclaimed where the needle had slid in, so smoothly it didn’t feel quite real. And then she’d met his eyes, and said "do it." And dream-Wesley had depressed the button that would flood her blood with something clear and golden as wine, something that would make her weaker than him, at his mercy.

When he’d felt the rush of liquid, Wesley thought he might come from that alone.

But he’d held back. He was still holding back. He'd almost managed to forget the heavy ache in his balls in seeing her pleasure. Now here eyes flickered open and she smiled down at him.

"I so wouldn’t have guessed you’d be like this."

"Neither would I," he said honestly. He would have thought he'd punish her – for trusting him and bringing him back here again, when he was finally through with all of that and the impossible burdens it contained, or for raising his hopes again when all that meant, all that ever meant, for him, was more to lose. Or for not punishing him. Or simply to drive her away now, before he failed her when it truly mattered.

But inside, under the tight control, where the rage and shame ate each other's tails like serpents, he had found nothing. Perhaps he'd used it all up when he believed she'd delivered him to Angel. Or perhaps it was enough to know he could.

Buffy chuckled. "So what? I say I trust you and now it's all with the tender, sensitive lovemaking? Because not that I'm complaining but I kinda liked the old way too."

That was one question answered. Buffy hadn't trusted him not to hurt her – she'd trusted him knowing he might. Stupid, stubborn girl. Perhaps that was the difference. He should have known. Buffy never did what was expected of her.

"You were complaining," he pointed out, moving to lie next to her and wrap his arm about her so she wouldn't get chilled.

"Only because I knew you wouldn't stop."

Wesley smiled. She was so incurably honest.

"So no more rough stuff?" Buffy persisted, pouting.

A shock of lust ran through him. "I didn't say that," Wes answered in a low, hoarse voice. "I understand this … state of affairs lasts for several days."

"I kinda hafta go home to Dawn, and to work and everything…" Buffy said half-heartedly.

"If I don't let you go, you have no choice," Wesley reminded Buffy.

"Oh…" the soft sound was more like a gasp than a protest.

Wesley took pity on her. "But I suppose I might allow you to fulfill your obligations. I know you'll come back." Wes didn't allow even the faintest tinge of a question to enter his voice.

Buffy's eyes were wide and dark, and obviously full of emotion, but unfortunately he had no idea which one. "I promise. Now let me go, please?"

She tugged on her hands to indicate that he should untie them and he did, swallowing his disappointment. Surely it was still early... though he supposed without her powers it was only prudent to be home before dark.

He sat up to untie her ankles as well, and she rose from the bed… and then knelt down beside it. "What are you doing?" he started to ask, then groaned as her lips brushed the very tip of his cock.

She smiled up at him. "Fulfilling my obligations."

********

It was only Monday, and Wesley moved about the library like an old man. All he lacked was a footstool, and perhaps a carved cane – all the males in his family suffered from gout, and anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot suffered from their gout as well.

He would have liked to chalk his creaky manner up to a weekend of nonstop sex with Buffy. And indeed even the stops there had been, for patrol and sleep and some sort of pizza and bad movie ritual to which he had, thankfully, not been invited, were barely sufficient. There had been plenty of time while he recuperated to discover precisely how many freckles Buffy had on her entire body (six), and tell her the history behind his scarred stomach, to find out just what Dawn thought of her having yet another mystery boyfriend, and argue about what sort of takeaway to order in. Even without her Slayer powers, Buffy could give him ten years, and it showed.

But that wasn't the whole of it. He listened to the sift of pages as they fell from the printer and collected in a tray. He'd wasted two hours trying to decide what to censor from the whole sordid story, what was relevant or useful and what might merely serve to disgust, or even corrupt, the mind he was trying to reach.

In the end he'd reached no conclusion except that he was manifestly unqualified to choose. So in it went, all of it, even the early volumes, which surely carried little new information to someone raised in a hell dimension, and the originals as well as the printed translations of the latest few, another pointless decision he'd lingered over. For all he knew the boy could read demon languages better than he could English, assuming he could read at all. The cardboard carton was getting difficult to heft, and Wesley made a mental note to reinforce it with another round of packing tape.

Only the note remained to be written. He wished, yet again, that he could merely charge the messenger with a verbal communication. Something along the lines of "Here you go," perhaps. But with any luck, Spike would consent to take the parcel with him, and Wesley placed no reliance on his ability to deliver his words accurately. He'd be lucky if the vampire remembered to whom he was supposed to give the actual box. And luckier still if he didn't tell Angel.

Wesley set yet another sheet of spoiled notepaper aside and started afresh. No excuses, he reminded himself. That wasn't the point of this exercise. The point was to follow Buffy's unlikely example, and make himself vulnerable where it might conceivably do some good for someone, if not for him. He couldn't make things right, but maybe he could still make something better.

"Connor –

I don't know what you've heard about me, if anything. It doesn't matter. I'm the one who took you from your father as a baby. Justine took you from me for Holtz. That makes your current predicament my responsibility."

Wesley took a deep breath. "I am also the one who brought your father back."

I can't tell you whether to place your trust in Angel," – because I don't even know if I do. I love him, but that's hardly the same thing – "and you've no reason to take my word. But here, for whatever it might be worth, is what I know. The circumstances of your birth and so forth are marked: the rest is irrelevant, but might someday prove useful. Had things worked out differently" – if I hadn't been a weak-minded fool when it mattered most - "it would all in any case have been yours."

Wesley put down his pen and studied the missive. It felt woefully unfinished. There was no word of apology, or of reproof. Probably because he still wasn't sure that either of them had been wrong. He also wasn't sure, in the end, if that was even the right question to ask.

He hesitated. He could simply close the letter here, or he could take a chance on an almost-stranger with ample reason to hate him.

For some reason, Wesley thought of Buffy holding a dose of the still-unnamed substance that was her version of kryptonite. Not the one she'd given him, but the one she'd kept.

He took up his pen again, added, "Should you ever need me, please don't hesitate to ask," and appended his cell phone number. Barring a Post Office Box, which was far too slow, it was the closest thing he had to a permanent address. He signed his name, and sealed the note inside the box. There, now, that was done, and if Spike wouldn't take it, there was always UPS.

After a moment, Wesley reached for the morning paper that still sat, unread, next to a paper cup of coffee long since gone cold. Wesley turned past the headlines without a qualm. People were fighting and dying; they always did. He opened to the want ads. Perhaps it was time he saw to getting a proper apartment.

END

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