The Adventures of Deadboy and Zeppo

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"Angel?" Wesley asked in a firmer tone than Angel usually heard from the former watcher. Ever since he had fed a large number of Wolfram and Hart lawyers to Dru and Darla, the others had spent more time edging around him, avoiding him. He had even considered kicking them out to keep them away from his growing madness, but Doyle had told him that his redemption would come from living among humans, and he wasn't ready to give up on that goal.

However, where Cordelia and Gunn and Lorne had grown more suspicious and cautious, Wesley was becoming more assertive. Normally Angel would support Wesley's new attitude, but his demon's aggravation and Xander's presence left him very little energy to deal with the man's new determination.

"Wesley," Angel replied in a non-committal tone as he got to the bottom step and passed Wesley on his way to the kitchen.

"Angel, I'm sure you understand the source of our concerns."

"Our?" Angel asked as he went through the doors to the service areas of the hotel with Wesley tagging close behind.

"Fine then. I'm sure you can understand the source of *my* concern. The Aurelius family ties still seem to exert some influence over you if the recent incident with Darla is anything to judge by."

"I set fire to Darla and Dru," Angel pointed out as he reached the refrigerator and opened the heavy steel doors.

"You didn't stake them," Wesley countered, and Angel really didn't have an answer for that, so he remained silent as he pulled out the two remaining bags of blood and emptied them into a pan.

"And now your behavior around with Xander is rather alarming." Wesley continued despite the fact that Angel kept his back to the man and swirled the slowly warming blood. "You must admit that your attitude toward Xander is a little disturbing. I mean, Cordelia said that you actually attempted to drain him."

"Are you upset that I attacked him or upset that I haven't staked him yet?" Angel asked as he started swirling faster. From the moment of silence, Wesley didn't have an answer. The only sound was the bottom of the pan scraping over the metal of the burner as Angel warmed his blood.

"I just don't like how his presence is affecting your mood," Wesley finally offered, and Angel stopped a moment as he considered that. They had no idea how close he was edging toward insanity, so he doubted Xander affected his mood as much as he just made it harder to hide his feelings. Angelus sent up another flare of resentment at having to answer to humans, and Angel returned his concentration to the blood.

"I'm fine."

"I hate to echo Cordelia, but I do agree that you have a history of hiding your problems. For example, none of us knew you were frustrated enough to condone a mass slaughter."

"Wesley," Angel growled in frustration, and he could hear the man physically back up. However, while the Wesley of Sunnydale would have fled in fear, this Wesley held his ground. Or at least he did once he had about ten feet of space and a stainless steel counter between the two of them.

"Angel, Xander is weaker than the fledge that I had to fight while training to be a watcher. If you unchained him, would he even be strong enough to defend himself or hunt?" Wesley's voice dripped with condemnation, and Angel struck out verbally.

"You want him to hunt?" Angel asked as he switched the stove off and reached for a large mug.

"What? No, of course not. That's not my point."

"Then what is your point, Wesley?" Angel asked himself why he hadn't just kicked his human employees out when he had first considered it.

"My point is that your treatment of him is..." Wesley stopped as Angel brought the cup up to his lips and started drinking. "Good lord. I thought you were fixing that for..." Wesley stopped again, and Angel fought down the image of ripping out the watcher's tongue so that he would be speechless from now on. He could feel Angelus' glee at the thought of actually doing it.

"Wesley, just say it," Angel finally sighed when the man stood opening and closing his mouth several times.

"You bastard. Xander is up there starving if his colour and his general weakness is any indication, and you stand there and drink the rest of the blood."

"Cordelia is bringing more," Angel pointed out after he drained the last of the blood. Three steps took him to the sink where he rinsed out the pan and the mug.

"That is not the point," Wesley snapped, and Angel felt his demon rise as he stared back. He hadn't even realized that his eyes were changing until Wesley backed up another three or four feet. "Hunting vampires is not the same as chaining them to the wall and making them suffer," Wesley insisted with a stubborn expression. Angel resisted an urge to snarl and instead just started back toward the front counter.

"Angel?" Wesley followed, and Angel considered just coming out and telling the man that he was acting like a sycophantic minion. Of course Angelus actually enjoyed Wesley's diffident attitude on most days, but today wasn't one of those days. Today Angelus wanted to go upstairs and either kill the cringing thing that had invaded his territory or at the very least dominate him into submission and enjoy the feeling of Xander's servile terror.

Once he reached the front, Angel pulled a ceramic pitcher from underneath the counter before grabbing some paper towels and wiping the inside.

"Angel? Are we going to discuss this?"

"No," Angel answered as he dropped the used paper towels in the garbage.

"So what exactly are your plans for Xander Harris?"

"That's really not your business, Wes."

"I am a part of Angel Investigation, and since this affects all of us, I think it is my business." Wesley's voice now had a faint threadiness to it that revealed his nervousness, but Angel was actually impressed that the man was sticking to his guns.

"This is clan business," Angel corrected him, cocking his head to listen to Cordy's stream of complaints as the young woman approached the front door. "And Cordelia is back."

"This isn't over," Wesley promised, but Angel ignored the man in order to meet Cordelia at the door. She backed her way into the lobby dragging a huge cooler along the ground.

"How much did you get?" Angel asked in shock as he looked at the huge cooler. Striding over, he grabbed the handle to pick it up, and quickly slipped his second arm under the bottom just in case the handle broke under the heavy weight.

"I told Ondary that you had a fledge here who was nearly your size but about a cup short of turning to dust."

"Vampires can't starve to death," Angel corrected her. "Their brains just rot from the lack of blood, and they go insane." After putting the cooler on the counter, Angel turned around to find both Cordelia and Wesley gazing at him in abject horror. "What?"

"Okay, mister. I just spend 20 minutes watching Ondary drain the blood fresh from a cow so it would have more punch, so you'd better start feeding Xander. He wasn't that many brains cells ahead of insane to start with, and if you drive him over the edge, I will make you sorry."

"I'm not planning on starving him," Angel said as he took a knife from his belt and cut his own wrist. He angled his arm so that a full cup of his own blood drained into the white ceramic pitcher. Angel licked his wound closed as he flipped open the plastic lid on the cooler. Inside quickly cooling blood lay in neat packets. He grabbed three of them and cut the tops, allowing the still-warm liquid to mix with his own blood.

"Can you take this up for him before it cools?" Angel asked as he handed Cordelia the near full pitcher of blood. He grabbed another packet and punctured it with the knife before drinking it straight from the plastic container.

"Maybe I'd better go with you," Wesley commented as he picked up a crossbow from his desk behind the counter. He followed Cordy as she started across the lobby, but from the glare he directed over his shoulder toward Angel, he wasn't ready to let the topic entirely drop.

"I'll store some of this and start heating the rest for Xander," Angel said as he picked up the cooler and headed for the back. He knew he was taking a risk trusting Xander when the fledge was so hungry, but he needed to know how far Xander's streak of humanity actually went. Besides, if someone had to turn the vampire to dust, Wesley had a better chance of surviving Cordy's anger than he did.

Angel ignored the taunts of cowardice from his own mind as he went in back to find a larger pan and another pitcher.

Pouring the now tepid blood into the pan, Angel admitted to himself that he almost hoped Xander would lose control and throw himself at the fresh blood. He started stacking the extra blood in the large refrigerator as he imagined the scene. Cordelia would scream and drop the blood, and the smell of that much blood would distract Xander even if Cordy was within range of the chained fledge. Wesley might have the mannerisms of a nerd, but he had a core of steel, and Angel knew the man wouldn't miss. Xander would drift down particle by particle, his ashes coating the bed and drifting into the spilled blood, and that would be the end of Xander Harris.

Angel found himself surprised by the jolt of anger he felt at the image. The boy had been an idiot on so many occasions that Angel couldn't even count them, but despite getting threatened, broken, strangled, beaten, caged, chained and generally terrorized, he had always gotten back up and jumped in the fight again.

Angel compared that to his own past. Darla had forced him to choose between his soul and his clan, and he'd spent the next hundred years slinking down alleys and trying to come up with the nerve to walk into the morning sun. The only reason he hadn't was his own Catholic upbringing and a fear of hell. Of course that fear had turned out to be thoroughly justified, and Xander had his part in that discovery too.

Angel took the warm blood from the pan and repeated the process of cutting his own wrist before he added the cow blood to the second pitcher. Angelus admired the boy's persistence and Angel had to admit that he envied how the boy had unerring tried to do the right thing. But at the same time, Angelus hated the weakness Dru's childer always suffered, and Angel resented the universe for sticking him with his least favorite citizen of Sunnydale. Now if this had happened to Willow... Angel stopped as his imagination provided an image of a vampire Willow spread out on black silk, and Angelus added his own touch with bloody fang wounds decorating her neck and thighs.

Angel tightened his hold on the pitcher as he crossed the lobby and started climbing the stairs. Maybe he really did need to get Wesley and Cordelia away from him. Every day he felt like he was sliding closer to the abyss where Angelus waited with that damn smug smile. Angel turned the corner to the hall that led to Xander's room. Wesley stood in the hallway, facing the far end and a good eight feet past the open door. Angel stepped closer, and he heard Xander.

Looking in the open door, Angel saw a strange tableau. The empty pitcher tilted precariously on the end table, the handle balanced awkwardly against the lamp. The dusty bedspread had been kicked to the floor at the foot of the bed, and Cordelia sat on the bed with Xander curled in her lap. His arms circled her waist as she bent over him with her small hands rubbing soothingly over broad shoulders. Xander's back heaved with sobs, and the fledge made distressed sounds somewhere between crying and growling.

Angel looked at the miserable figure and flashed to a memory of William curled in the corner hugging himself as Angelus had made the young fledge watch his own games with Drusilla. With every fall of the whip, Drusilla had screamed her pleasure, and William had given another sob. A wave of guilt washed over Angel as he once again faced the fact that he had driven William into becoming Spike. Every kill on Spike's impressive list was at Angelus' doorstep.

Stepping into the room, Angel did what he had never done for William. He started the purr low and soft, a sound to entice a lover or soothe a childe. Cordelia turned and looked at him with swollen red eyes, and Angel nodded slightly even as Xander scrambled away. Ignoring Xander's sudden fear, Angel continued purring as he moved toward the bed. He deposited his full pitcher next to the empty one which clattered down onto its side allowing a couple of drops of blood to drip onto the wood.

Angel held out a hand for Cordelia, helping her off the bed as he took Cordy's spot. At first Xander scooted as far away as he could as he struggled to stop his ragged breathing, but Angel continued his soothing purr as he touched Xander's shoulder. The skin was warmer now, the flesh firmer even though Xander still didn't have enough blood in him to give him any color. Angel pulled Xander toward him. At first the fledge resisted, but without warning, Xander surrendered and buried his face in Angel's thigh just as he had hidden in Cordelia's lap.

Angel soothed the crying fledge despite Angelus sneering at him in the back of his mind. Reaching down to rip his own wrist open with fangs, Angel offered Xander sire's blood fresh from the source.

"Drink," Angel said, and Xander didn't need a second invitation. Not only did Xander begin pulling at the wound, but he also sunk his own fangs deep into Angel's flesh, and Angel groaned at the feeling of having another feed from him.