Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
prodigalwatcher) wrote2006-07-13 01:37 pm
prodigalwatcher) wrote2006-07-13 01:37 pm
Entry tags:
Artistic License - Descent
Title / Prompt: Descent / "In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice." - Marquis de Sade
Character: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Warning: Allusions/descriptions of violence and torture.
Pairing: None
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Word count: 1199
Rating: PG-13 for language and subject
Disclaimer: Wesley and other characters created by Joss Whedon and are property of Mutant Enemy Productions, and are used without permission.
Link:
At first, the very thought of leaving his apartment was inconceivable. Outside his door lay the world he was trying so very hard to avoid, to turn away. That world held the people who had sold him out, spilled his blood and tricked him into selling his soul. Worse still, it held those he'd once called friends, who'd turned their backs on him at the precise moment he'd needed them most.
Wesley wanted no part of that world, not anymore.
He'd been drawn out once, to the club where Lilah had arranged her inane show for him, drawing out Justine and, inadvertently, Angel and Connor. Wesley was even more convinced that the world was nowhere for him afterwards.
But cupboards emptied, and eventually, every bottle of liquor ran dry. The only regret he carried about allowing Gunn into this refuge and giving his aid to Fred was that he'd had to lose an entire, perfectly good bottle of Stolichnaya to do it.
The closest liquor store was closed. The closest bar, a dingy and despairing hole in the wall, was not. And it was there, with the overly cold lager Americans called beer and shots of middling-quality whiskey, that Lilah had found him. Their conversation in the bar had ended with his hand around her throat.
It had continued in his apartment with it passing underneath her skirt and hers snaking down the front of his trousers.
Somewhere, in the midst of the act, Wesley had found himself wondering exactly why Lilah Morgan, of all people, was in his bed. She was, he decided, quite perfect for the position, so to speak. Lilah was irrefutably evil and bereft of conscience, and had been behind more than a few attempts on the lives of Wesley and his former compatriots. Who better than her to serve as part of his self-inflicted punishment?
But as he lay in his bed after Lilah had departed, Wesley understood that though he'd been tossed aside and fallen, he hadn't fallen quite far enough. If this were to be his world now, this cold and violent place with its shades of brown and gray, without even the slightest warmth... there was only one way to know it.
Wesley was done with falling. He would jump in, with both feet.
The pistol was easy enough to come by. Being single and essentially without a social life, it hadn't been hard for Wesley to live a frugal enough existence to have saved up some money, bolstered by some wise investing. His days at Angel Investigations had given him a few avenues to pursue, and within ten hours of starting his search, he had procured the weapon he'd wanted. A few other specific, and one or two much more unusual, purchases followed. Two weeks passed until he felt ready.
Since Lilah had been so helpful as to let him know Justine was still in town, it took all of another two days to locate her. The redhead was walking down a particularly unglamorous stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, eyes and ears keen, her whole being on alert for vampires, as if she were some self-appointed Slayer. The arrogance brought bile to Wesley's mouth, and it only served to steady his hand.
Once, he'd been more than able to detect her following him. Justine was not so able.
He stepped out of a doorway, his back to a guttering yellow streetlight. Justine immediately dropped into a fighting stance, hand dipping under her leather jacket for a stake. Wesley laughed-- a rough, hard sound around his still-healing throat.
"How ironic," Wesley quipped, mostly to himself. He moved a bit more into the light.
"You," Justine rasped, eyes widening in recognition. Just as she began to turn, Wesley slipped the pistol out of his own jacket pocket, the dull gray finish turned almost gold by the sodium vapor light.
"I'd prefer not to have to shoot you, Justine," he said calmly. Not 'don't want', he hoped she understood, 'prefer not'.
"What do you want?"
His almost-smile was cold, tugging at one unshaven cheek. "The list is longer than I care to say and far more than you could ever provide. But the simplest answer, for your benefit, is you."
The pistol lowered, but Wesley's other hand rose. Two tiny darts released from the small box he held, trailing hair-thin wires. The darts dug into Justine's chest. As Wesley thumbed the trigger, the woman's body convulsed violently as the taser incapacitated her completely.
It was a simple enough thing to bring her back to his apartment. Not so simple had been explaining away the ruckus of installing the cage door, but the terror in Justine's expression when she woke inside it was worth the trouble. She shouted and screamed and cursed, all as he'd expected, and the soundproofing worked just as well as advertised. She tired quickly of throwing herself against the bars.
The crying and whimpering came next, and just like the anger, Wesley met it with a silent resolve he hadn't realised was something of which he was capable. Before, the merest cry for aid from a woman would have sent Wesley flying to the rescue. But not now, and certainly not for this woman.
He let Justine spend twenty-four hours in the closet cage before he even began questioning her. The first night of interrogation, she'd screamed her voice raw cursing him. The second night, she pulled at the handcuffs he'd used to secure her to a chair until her wrists bled. Three more nights of silence. It was time, he knew, to ask more stridently.
Blunt, sharp, hot, cold and loud.
Blunt was all it took to make her tell him about Holtz' plan. It took the application of hot and the threat of sharp to finally get to the tale about Connor and the boat, and the metal box at the bottom of the harbour.
He locked her in the closet again, the bucket making an awful clang as he threw it in after her. Wesley slammed the door closed and locked it.
Why should he save Angel, he wondered? Where was Wesley himself, but trapped in the dark, cold and suffocating? He was only human. He wouldn't survive long that way, but Wesley was growing more and more at peace with the notion. But the compulsion was still there, the small voice at the back of his head was still there.
The decision should have been more difficult. Vengeance and fury should have held more sway, the dull cold ache of abandonment should have given him more pause. But there was almost no deliberation, no hesitation.
Justine would lead him to Angel, and Wesley would save him. All, simply, because it was the right thing to do. He had plumbed the depths of this awful, harsh world he'd been cast out into, and while it had hardened him, he could still find a way to fight. There were things to do, and Wesley knew that he could do them.
Better, perhaps, and more effectively, as well.
And if he was truly lost, then he would damn well bring as many of "them" as he could with him.
Character: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Warning: Allusions/descriptions of violence and torture.
Pairing: None
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Word count: 1199
Rating: PG-13 for language and subject
Disclaimer: Wesley and other characters created by Joss Whedon and are property of Mutant Enemy Productions, and are used without permission.
Link:
At first, the very thought of leaving his apartment was inconceivable. Outside his door lay the world he was trying so very hard to avoid, to turn away. That world held the people who had sold him out, spilled his blood and tricked him into selling his soul. Worse still, it held those he'd once called friends, who'd turned their backs on him at the precise moment he'd needed them most.
Wesley wanted no part of that world, not anymore.
He'd been drawn out once, to the club where Lilah had arranged her inane show for him, drawing out Justine and, inadvertently, Angel and Connor. Wesley was even more convinced that the world was nowhere for him afterwards.
But cupboards emptied, and eventually, every bottle of liquor ran dry. The only regret he carried about allowing Gunn into this refuge and giving his aid to Fred was that he'd had to lose an entire, perfectly good bottle of Stolichnaya to do it.
The closest liquor store was closed. The closest bar, a dingy and despairing hole in the wall, was not. And it was there, with the overly cold lager Americans called beer and shots of middling-quality whiskey, that Lilah had found him. Their conversation in the bar had ended with his hand around her throat.
It had continued in his apartment with it passing underneath her skirt and hers snaking down the front of his trousers.
Somewhere, in the midst of the act, Wesley had found himself wondering exactly why Lilah Morgan, of all people, was in his bed. She was, he decided, quite perfect for the position, so to speak. Lilah was irrefutably evil and bereft of conscience, and had been behind more than a few attempts on the lives of Wesley and his former compatriots. Who better than her to serve as part of his self-inflicted punishment?
But as he lay in his bed after Lilah had departed, Wesley understood that though he'd been tossed aside and fallen, he hadn't fallen quite far enough. If this were to be his world now, this cold and violent place with its shades of brown and gray, without even the slightest warmth... there was only one way to know it.
Wesley was done with falling. He would jump in, with both feet.
The pistol was easy enough to come by. Being single and essentially without a social life, it hadn't been hard for Wesley to live a frugal enough existence to have saved up some money, bolstered by some wise investing. His days at Angel Investigations had given him a few avenues to pursue, and within ten hours of starting his search, he had procured the weapon he'd wanted. A few other specific, and one or two much more unusual, purchases followed. Two weeks passed until he felt ready.
Since Lilah had been so helpful as to let him know Justine was still in town, it took all of another two days to locate her. The redhead was walking down a particularly unglamorous stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, eyes and ears keen, her whole being on alert for vampires, as if she were some self-appointed Slayer. The arrogance brought bile to Wesley's mouth, and it only served to steady his hand.
Once, he'd been more than able to detect her following him. Justine was not so able.
He stepped out of a doorway, his back to a guttering yellow streetlight. Justine immediately dropped into a fighting stance, hand dipping under her leather jacket for a stake. Wesley laughed-- a rough, hard sound around his still-healing throat.
"How ironic," Wesley quipped, mostly to himself. He moved a bit more into the light.
"You," Justine rasped, eyes widening in recognition. Just as she began to turn, Wesley slipped the pistol out of his own jacket pocket, the dull gray finish turned almost gold by the sodium vapor light.
"I'd prefer not to have to shoot you, Justine," he said calmly. Not 'don't want', he hoped she understood, 'prefer not'.
"What do you want?"
His almost-smile was cold, tugging at one unshaven cheek. "The list is longer than I care to say and far more than you could ever provide. But the simplest answer, for your benefit, is you."
The pistol lowered, but Wesley's other hand rose. Two tiny darts released from the small box he held, trailing hair-thin wires. The darts dug into Justine's chest. As Wesley thumbed the trigger, the woman's body convulsed violently as the taser incapacitated her completely.
It was a simple enough thing to bring her back to his apartment. Not so simple had been explaining away the ruckus of installing the cage door, but the terror in Justine's expression when she woke inside it was worth the trouble. She shouted and screamed and cursed, all as he'd expected, and the soundproofing worked just as well as advertised. She tired quickly of throwing herself against the bars.
The crying and whimpering came next, and just like the anger, Wesley met it with a silent resolve he hadn't realised was something of which he was capable. Before, the merest cry for aid from a woman would have sent Wesley flying to the rescue. But not now, and certainly not for this woman.
He let Justine spend twenty-four hours in the closet cage before he even began questioning her. The first night of interrogation, she'd screamed her voice raw cursing him. The second night, she pulled at the handcuffs he'd used to secure her to a chair until her wrists bled. Three more nights of silence. It was time, he knew, to ask more stridently.
Blunt, sharp, hot, cold and loud.
Blunt was all it took to make her tell him about Holtz' plan. It took the application of hot and the threat of sharp to finally get to the tale about Connor and the boat, and the metal box at the bottom of the harbour.
He locked her in the closet again, the bucket making an awful clang as he threw it in after her. Wesley slammed the door closed and locked it.
Why should he save Angel, he wondered? Where was Wesley himself, but trapped in the dark, cold and suffocating? He was only human. He wouldn't survive long that way, but Wesley was growing more and more at peace with the notion. But the compulsion was still there, the small voice at the back of his head was still there.
The decision should have been more difficult. Vengeance and fury should have held more sway, the dull cold ache of abandonment should have given him more pause. But there was almost no deliberation, no hesitation.
Justine would lead him to Angel, and Wesley would save him. All, simply, because it was the right thing to do. He had plumbed the depths of this awful, harsh world he'd been cast out into, and while it had hardened him, he could still find a way to fight. There were things to do, and Wesley knew that he could do them.
Better, perhaps, and more effectively, as well.
And if he was truly lost, then he would damn well bring as many of "them" as he could with him.