Oncoming Train

***
Friday, early evening.

A rhythmic banging pulled Riley from sleep. Cracking open one eye, he stared at the vibrating door, fuzzily realizing it wasn’t his bedroom door, nor was it being banged on. The noise came from somewhere else, and after thinking about that for a minute, he decided that was a good thing.

It wasn’t a new experience, waking in unfamiliar surroundings, but as a practice, he tried to avoid doing it. Pleasant circumstances were rarely cause for the event, but carefully rolling onto his back, he found none of the usual accompanying pain. He ached certainly, but not unpleasantly so. His head felt the worse, detached and thick with fog. And the sheets felt like silk.

A careful roll of his head revealed him to be alone in the large bed. Propping up on his elbows, he took stock of the darkened room, noting the lack of habitation. Was this a test scenario? No ornaments on the dresser, no discarded clothing. The air had a stale quality to it to match the atmosphere of the room, discouraging the idea that this was an Initiative simulation. If it had been, he should have smelt fresh paint, sawdust, that odd ‘new’ smell. Also, he’d never dry run an assassination without a mock victim. But for himself, the room was empty of life.

Beyond the closed door he heard a woman’s voice raise in anger, the banging becoming more strident. The voice was unfamiliar, but at least he was assured he wasn’t alone wherever here was. Not as certain if he wanted to meet the owner of that voice. Shoving his feet off the side and slowly sitting up, Riley focused on not blacking out as his vision grayed and fuzzed. A few minutes passed before he felt confident he wasn’t going to topple to the floor if he dared to unlock his limbs.

Stubbornly ignoring the shaking of his limbs, he tried to make sense of his spotty memory, breathing shallowly as he stared down at his bare feet. He’d finished his shift at O’Malley’s and headed home, but he didn’t remember making it. No, he hadn’t. He’d . . . the flip switched in his head and the attack came back to him, as chaotic as his memory of events were. Hadn’t he seen Graham? Lifting his head, he slowly glanced around. The place just didn’t look Initiative, even as a Recovery and Containment room; it lacked sterility and was bare of the monitoring equipment trailing wires and tubes into his flesh. But if the Initiative hadn’t grabbed him, then who? What of the others? Were they here somewhere?

Spotting his shirt draped over a nearby chair, Riley stretched to reach it, clenching his teeth at the roil of nausea protesting the movement. He couldn’t just sit here and nurse his wounds if the others were in need of help. Moving carefully, he shrugged into his tee-shirt, then looked around for his underwear and jeans. Saw a wrinkled leg peaking out from the bottom of the bed and laid back down to reach out and snag them. His underwear weren’t inside, so he decided to go without. Some struggling and several stops to settle his gut, and he got them on. By the end, his hands were shaking so bad, he couldn’t manage the zipper and left it.

Getting to his feet was another major accomplishment. Ignoring the little voice in his head asking him how he was going to rescue anyone in this state, he shuffled to the door, taking each obstacle as it came. He didn’t have any of his tools to pick a lock, but if he could catch his breath, he was confident he could break the door handle. Of course, if this was some new twist on an Initiative test scenario, an alarm would likely sound when he broke the door, but he couldn’t summon the energy to think of a better plan. There were no windows, so the door was it.

The door was unlocked. Fuzzily perplexed at the lack in security, he cautiously stepped out into the hall, tensed for the sounding of an alarm. Nothing, however, interrupted the banging, which now sounded louder in the long hallway he found himself in. Swaying in time to the rhythmic noise, he closed his eyes and tried to think past the booming crowding out his tired thoughts.

Something brushed his shoulder, chill and heavy. Instinct whipped him around, fist lashing out.There was nothing there and his body protested the violent movement, vision graying as he choked on the taste of bile.

Arms caught him before he could hit the floor. “Easy there. Didn’t mean to startle you. Sorry.” The voice was low and vaguely familiar, but he didn’t really hear it, focused on keeping his stomach out of his throat. The chilly hands felt oddly comfortable, steadying his drunken equilibrium. Confident of his feet once more, he stepped back, ignoring the pang of loss as those cold hands slid away. The touch reminded him of Spike and the blessed coolness of his undead flesh, but the voice wasn’t his friend’s. So who? With a bracing breath, he looked up.

“Angel.” He closed his eyes and opened them again, but the man in front of him didn’t disappear. Buffy’s true love was standing not three feet in front of him. Tall, stylishly dressed in dark slacks and pullover, fucking gorgeous, and smiling at him. God, why couldn’t it have been the Initiative?

The vampire shook his head, happy smile still in place. Something vague shadowed the chocolate brown eyes, unacknowledged. “We’ve been here, remember?”

Was that concern? “No.”

Angel stepped closer, to the side. Riley’s head swung automatically to follow, eyes squinting as pain echoed the movement. The smile changed slightly as nostrils flared. Sniffing. “How do you feel?”

Why did he care? “Fine.” The vampire shifted again, closer, out of Riley’s field of vision. Muscles tensed as he fought the urge to track his movements, knowing his balance was precarious. He could feel the larger man’s weight behind him, knew if he breathed, hot air would gust against his skin. The vampire had to see how pathetically weak he was, and Riley stiffened further as he realized Angel was playing with him. Concern, right. More likely contempt. Anger burned away some of the fog and forced him to move. No fucking way was he going to make this easy on the bloodsucker. He wanted to play with his food, he’d have to catch him first.

He caught the vampire by surprise, darting forward, then slipping around him, heading for the room he’d woken in. There was no escape from there, but at least he knew its layout, knew he could lay hands on some wood. His body protested as he pushed it past pain, to not surrender its agonies without a token effort to defend its miserable existence. Having endured far greater atrocities than his dead ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend’s need for vengeance, his body rallied, hurtling him towards the door.

Nearly through, eyes on the lovely varnished wood of a bedpost, he was yanked back. Riley snarled in frustration, gently cold hands pressing him firmly to the wall, holding him immobile. “Riley, Riley, I’m not going to hurt you.” Angel’s voice was in his ear, calming, caressing, soothing even as his grip stayed firm. “I went through some small effort to rescue you, so please, I’m not going to hurt you now. You’re safe.”

Cheek pressed to the wallpaper, he looked back to what he could see of the vampire. “Rescued? You rescued me?”

Angel smiled at the incredulous tone and slowly rotated Riley till his back supported the wall. “Yeah. And I’m not that desperate for a meal that I’ll fight off a bunch of pajama clad goons to get one.”

Flushing guiltily, Riley looked away from those earnest eyes. His body hurt worse than ever, but at least his head was clearing. “What happened?” Before the vampire could answer, his stomach plaintively growled. Adrenaline was waking his system, cleaning it of the clouding toxins, but he needed sustenance to heal completely at usual speed. Still, it was embarrassing, and his blush deepened as another hunger pain rumbled out, eliciting an indulgent smile from the vampire.

“You must be hungry. You slept through most of the day.”

That was news. His body was usually pretty good at eradicating foreign chemicals. “Why?” he asked, rubbing at his belly when it growled again. Angel’s eyes tracked down, to watch the absent circling. Feeling a tingle down his spine at the look in those eyes, Riley shifted, dropped his hand. Realized he’d been talking mostly in short sentences in a defensive compensation for feeling nervous at having to converse with the great Angel. Then blushed again at the five dollar words his brain was gibbering at him to bolster his flagging ego. Oh yeah, mature adult here. “Why did I sleep through most of the day? And where am I?”

Angel studied his face a moment, that weird light in his eyes again. Then he gestured with a sweep of one hand to the left. “You’re in my mansion, in Sunnydale. Kitchen’s this way.” The disconcerting gaze swept him again, making Riley feel like a grunt in front of his drill sergeant. Something must have showed, because the vampire smiled and stepped closer, pressing them nearly flush. The ex-commando opened his mouth to tell the guy to back off, but nothing came out as strong, confident fingers reached beneath the hem of his shirt and zipped him up. “There,” Angel murmured, and Riley couldn’t say if the caress to his cock was accidental or not, it had been so brief. His hips jerked gently as the brunette tugged, working the button closed. “Now let’s go get you something to eat.”

The vampire stepped back, giving Riley the space to move off the wall. Not certain if he was hallucinating or not, the ex-commando took the invitation, heading slowly in the direction Angel had pointed. A hand settled heavily against the small of his back, steering and bracing him from behind. Riley frowned at the intimacy, but the vampire was talking close to his ear, casually dismissing the proprietary touch. “You were attacked last night by four humans dressed in black fatigues. They injected you with something, a heavy sedative. Do you like chicken casserole?”

The shift in conversation was sudden, but Riley went with it, his mouth working while his head tried to remember. “Yeah, anything’s good.”

They came to a flight of stairs angled down. Angel’s hand slid up to his shoulder, gripping just hard enough to let him know the vampire wouldn’t let him fall. “Cordelia made it, but no one’s died yet. It should be safe.”

Riley smirked. “I’ve been eating Harris’ slop for the last couple of months.” They reached the bottom and the hand steered him through a portal to the left, into another hall. “Your friend couldn’t do any worse.” Riley was proud he remained steady on his feet, being able to move and forced to talk helping to shake off his nausea and exhaustion. The short hall opened into a large kitchen, outfitted like a restaurant’s with steel countertops and an industrial sized fridge.

Angel stepped away from him, talking over his shoulder as he walked to the fridge. “I don’t know, she dated Harris.”

Settling himself gingerly on one of the stools lining a free standing counter, Riley watched the vampire move about his kitchen, seemingly comfortable in preparing a human meal. A part of him noted the banging had stopped. The name and ‘dated Harris’ clicked in his head. “She’s the cheerleader, right?”

“Yeah. You may want extra cheese with this.”

“That bad?”

“Gunn claims it’s always safer to add more cheese.”

“Gunn?”

“An associate of mine. He and Cordelia came to help fight whatever was in Cordy’s vision. He says he came because he’s never seen suburbia before, but I think he and Wesley are fighting again and he needed to get out.”

That was a name he recognized. “Wesley a Watcher? Walking demon library?”
Angel looked up from grating cheese with an adorable grin. There was no other word for it. “That would be him. Used to be a Watcher. Stayed behind to hold the fort. Soda?”

“Water, thanks. I remember Xander mentioning Cordelia had visions of bad things that could happen. Knew there had to be something different about her for Harris to have dated her.” Again, definite weirdness that he was sitting and casually talking with the great Angel. Staring at the bent head, Riley shook his own. Maybe whatever he’d been injected with was more than a sedative. Maybe his life had really gotten that bizarre, that his ex-rival making him food and chatting was normal. Upstairs, he’d felt serious tension from the guy, but now he was acting like he’d never beaten the pulp out Riley, zipped up his jeans, and basically crowded his space with pheromones. Riley was willing to forget the beating, that had been over a year ago and everything had been weird, but upstairs had him flummoxed. And again with the big words.

Leaving everything to clean up later, Angel brought over a plate and glass of water, taking the stool across from Riley’s as he set the food down. “The visions came after Donut Boy, but I know what you mean. Bug woman, mummy girl, the vengeance demon, and now Spike. Cordy always seemed to be the contradiction. Then I saw her cheer.”

“Hey! Cheerleading is not evil!” A leggy brunette stomped in, closely followed by Willow and Spike. The girl was beautiful in a starlet kind of way, but the battered bat she was casually swinging in one hand clashed with her designer clothing, ruining the image. Sighting Riley over Angel’s shoulder, she broke into a beaming white smile, showing off expensive dental work. “Well, hello.”

TBC.