Trying to get along. Ha!

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Continued from here.

"No, I know," Angel said, sounding good-natured. Wesley wasn't sure if it was genuine or an act, and the fact that he couldn't tell made him uncomfortable. "I just want to know."

Feeling rather helpless, Wesley shifted his chair sideways a bit and rested his hand on Spike's thigh, the tension in the vampire's frame impossible to miss.

Comments

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike didn't look over at Wesley, but he appreciated the touch. "You deserve a lot worse, and you bloody well know it," he said as evenly as he could.

Angel nodded sadly. "That's true," he said. The deep regret and what looked dangerously like pity in his eyes as they remained locked on him just made Spike angrier.

"That's enough right there. You've been a bastard to me for more than a century, but you don't get to add me to your list of sins to brood over."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"So what do you want me to do? I'm serious -- tell me. Pretend like none of it happened? It doesn't seem like that's what you're doing." Angel looked confused, which, while not an unprecedented expression, made Wesley feel a bit sorry for him.

"Do you want him to apologize?" Wesley asked Spike gently.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"What's he going to apologize for?" Spike asked derisively. "For letting Dru turn me? For not staking me the first minute he laid eyes on me? He doesn't see what he did as a problem; he sees me as the problem."

Angel glanced away, very obviously not disagreeing.

It was only Wesley's hand on his leg that kept Spike from leaping over the table and punching Angel. "Bugger this," he snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. "This might be L.A., but I'm not here for therapy; I'm here to clean up another of his sodding messes."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"It didn't have to be a mess," Angel protested. "It was all wrapped up neat and clean, everybody happy, until..." He glanced at Wesley and trailed off, clearly having better sense than to finish.

"And right there is the reason I can't stay," Wesley told him, his hand shifting and curling into a fist where it rested on Spike's thigh, unwilling to lose contact.

"Why?" Angel asked, as if he honestly didn't know.

"Because you aren't capable of seeing how what you did was wrong," Wesley said flatly.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike placed his hand over Wesley's now that he wasn't bearing the brunt of the attacks, rubbing his thumb gently over the back of Wesley's balled hand.

"I can see why you think it is," Angel admitted, "but I still think my decision was a good one. Things were better."

"Only because you took out the parts you didn't like and turned your friends into puppets in your own little fantasy land," Spike said.

"They weren't puppets." Angel turned to Wesley. "You weren't puppets. You were you."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"I wasn't, not really," Wesley said. "I was a different version of me. Not the real one."

"It was still you," Angel insisted. "It's not like I was... forcing you to do what I said. You had free will. You'd just forgotten Connor and some of the things that happened with him. That's all."

"For someone who altered the memories of his friends and family and who continues to say how important it was, it's unbelievable to me that you'd now try to persuade me that it wasn't a big deal," Wesley said.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Angel leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. He was looking increasingly desperate for Wesley to understand him. "Making Connor safe was important, but it didn't change who you were."

"It doesn't work that way," Spike said, shaking his head. "You took away part of what made them them."

"No, I didn't."

"If you'd had your memories, would you have made the same choices you did?" Spike asked Wesley.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," Wesley said. "It doesn't matter."

Angel frowned. "What do you mean, it doesn't matter?"

"I mean it doesn't make any difference whether or not I'd have made the same choices. Partially because there's no way to know, but also because it wouldn't change the fact that you altered my memories without my consent."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"I know, but..." The way that Angel blinked so forlornly at Wesley might have made Spike feel sorry for him if he didn't hate him so much. "I was trying to do the best for everyone."

"Next time try asking them first," Spike said.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"It was a deal," Angel said desperately. "If they'd asked for more, I might have given that, too. My own memories, all the perks that came along with the position -- I didn't ask for those, you know."

There was a lot in what Angel had just said -- too much for Wesley to take in all at once, probably. He focused on the last thing. "No, you wouldn't have, would you." The vampire would have been just as happy being miserable, when it came right down to it.