part 3: the road to my regret (Los Angeles)

There are many things that can be bought with a good suit, a Wolfram and Hart credit card, and the right attitude. Almost everything in the world, in fact, as Wesley's found out, and that includes a rental car at the last minute and in short order while someone he's planning to put into the car is bleeding out on the sidewalk behind the rental agency.

It doesn't, however, buy escape unscathed from brutal vigilante killings in Las Vegas casinos, and when the MacManus boys stumbled out the delivery exit, following their father, and Wesley saw the red stain blooming across Connor's left shoulder, he remembered that money can't buy everything - and sometimes you don't want it to.

Connor's been bleeding onto Murphy's coat for nearly a hundred miles, no one in the car speaking at all, when Wesley finally screeches into the parking lot of a gas station in the middle of the desert on I-15. He's certain that they lost the security guards long ago, but he's also fairly certain that he's ferrying three of the FBI's Most Wanted in the dark blue SUV he'd rented in Vegas, and there's no such thing as too careful.

Wesley turns the key in the ignition and watches Connor and Murphy in the rearview mirror for a long moment before he finally turns. Connor's floating in and out of unconsciousness, and Murphy's staunched the worst of the bleeding, but they can't walk into a hospital without being arrested now, and the bullet is likely still lodged in the wound. Murphy's head is bent over his brother, his mouth resting against Connor's ear as though he's been whispering to him, convincing his brother to stay alive until they can do something to help him. Wesley doesn't doubt that he has - the connection those two have is beyond uncanny.

Murphy's eyes are closed, but his breathing isn't deep and even the way his father's is; after having exhausted himself saying the rosary and praying for Connor's survival continuously for the first thirty miles out of Vegas, Il Duce is sleeping in the passenger seat. Wesley pulls himself away from the mirror image and glances back at them directly. Murphy's eyes come open and he meets Wesley's gaze.

"We've got to do something," Murphy whispers, and Wesley thinks he hears something other than desperation - though there's a certain amount of that, as well - in his voice. "He's bled all over my fuckin' coat, Wes, and I liked this coat." Yes, definitely humor.

"I know," Wesley says. "Stay here, I'll be back momentarily."

He knows this gas station - he was aiming for it. Most of the stations along this stretch of highway are dusty, grimy places inside and out, with stale hotdogs rotating slowly in a roaster and crisps that are long past their prime, hanging on the racks. But this one is a diamond in the literal rough; clean inside if not out, with fully stocked shelves of all varieties. For once, the parking lot is nearly empty and there's only a lone tractor trailer filling its tank at the pumps.

He's in and out in under five minutes, two heavy bags weighing his hands down. When he opens the back door, Connor stirs awkwardly and starts to whimper. Murphy has his mouth against his brother's ear before Wesley can blink, whispering in Irish and stroking Connor's hair.

"What we need then, aye?" Murphy says when Connor settles back against his chest. Il Duce is still sleeping - or faking it well - in the front seat, and the backseat is roomy but not quite roomy enough for all three of them. Wesley's momentarily distracted by the feel of Murphy's thigh pressing against his own, as he tries to spread out his tools without disturbing Connor. Warm, hard thigh underneath his leg - and he's not thinking about that now.

"Yes," Wesley says. "These are neither the optimal tools nor is it the optimal location for this, but I'd rather try now than run the risk of blood poisoning or something worse trying to get home."

"You done this before?"

"More times than I'd like to count," Wesley says grimly, and he tries not to remember all the times he pried crossbow bolts out of Angel and wiped antiseptic across Charles's back. This was new, and these men had not yet given him the signs that they would try to smother him in a hospital bed were he to fuck up.

Shoot him in the back, maybe, but not smother him and leave him. They'd just kill him outright, and somehow that's better.

He's purchased a pair of needle-nose pliers, the best he could do in terms of objects available to grab a stray bullet from the thick muscle of a shoulder, five bottles of rubbing alcohol, and enough gauze to turn Connor into a mummy if that is what's necessary. He leaves the door open and unwraps the pliers hastily, clenching the handle in his teeth while he opens a bottle of rubbing alcohol to pour all over them.

"Put your jacket behind his shoulder," he says to Murphy, while he cleans the pliers. "And give him something to bite down on, because I'm going to empty this bottle onto his shoulder in one moment."

Murphy does as he's told - Wesley gets the idea that Connor getting shot is not an uncommon occurrence - and Wesley cuts Connor's t-shirt carefully away from his skin, tugging at the spots where it's fused against his shoulder with blood. Connor writhes and twists and shouts, muffled against Murphy's arm, when Wesley empties the second bottle of rubbing alcohol onto his shoulder. It wipes enough blood away that Wesley can see the tip of the bullet, barely beneath the skin and easy to grab, and he flexes the pliers in his hand, presses down on Connor's chest and pulls.

It slides out easily; it's easier than it all looks when you've the practice he does, and he knows they do. Connor shouts again, tears running down his face, and Murphy's apt to have teeth marks permanently set in his arm from Connor's mouth, but that's the worst of the pain - Wesley finishes cleaning the wound, front and back, with Connor groggily leaning against Murphy's chest so Wes can wrap gauze across his back.

Wesley shakes six ibuprofen from a jar and hands them to Murphy with a bottle of water when he's through wrapping Connor's wound, before he crawls out from the backseat. "It's not much," he says, and he's apologizing, which he never did when Charles had gotten himself shot through on a routine patrol. It's an impulse that he doesn't understand, but he thinks it's partially to do with the fact that underneath the violence, these are honestly good people at heart. Charles is, he must admit, a bit of a wanker most of the time, and it's usually his fault he's gotten shot. "But it should last him until we get home to Los Angeles, and I've got some more powerful painkillers there. That's the shoulder where I shot him, isn't it?"

"Aye," Murphy says. "You bastard."

"He's had a bad week," Wesley says.

"Not our worst," Murphy answers, and Connor, his eyes still closed, stirs against his chest and Murphy's arms go around him automatically.

"Not mine either," Wesley says.

And despite it all, despite everything that was weighing on his heart when these men stumbled, guns drawn, into his life, he finds that he means it, which is stranger than anything else.

He climbs back into the driver's seat and points the car towards Los Angeles; there's more he has to say, but he doesn't know what it is.

Connor swims up into the moving car through a haze of pain. He pries one eye open, partially, and tries to look down and see what the fuck is wrong with him but Murphy's fuckin' arm is in the way; he knows it's Murph because he can see the tattoo on his right hand, splayed out across Connor's stomach, fingers wrapped loosely around a bottle of water. And Murphy's not moving because Murphy's dead fuckin' asleep, breathing soft and warm across the back of Connor's neck.

So Connor pries his other eye open, just a little, because it really fuckin' hurts to move, and tries to figure out where the fuck he is, even if he's not sure what the fuck happened to him.

Wesley's driving, an unfamiliar car, big fuckin' clunker of an American SUV, and Da's sleeping, face against the window, looking older than he is. Since Connor's trapped in the comforting - but don't tell Murph he said it - circle of Murphy's arms, he can't much move, but he grunts a little, and Wesley's eyes flicker off the road and meet his in the mirror.

"You're awake," Wesley says, and it sounds like he wasn't expecting it.

"What the fuck happened to me," Connor tries to say, but "Grempf," comes out instead. He clears his throat a couple of times and then there's a hand in his limited field of vision, Murphy's hand, and Murphy's stirring behind him. The water's uncapped and Connor can't move real well for himself, so he opens his mouth and lets Murph pour more than half of the bottle into his mouth, and the rest of it onto his chest, where it's cold and wet and everything you'd expect water to be, plus it feels really pretty good on top of that.

"You remember anything?" Murph says in his ear, and Wesley's eyes flicker from the road to the mirror again.

"Nnngh," Connor says.

"One of the security blokes shot you," Murphy says. "While we were fleeing the scene of our great and startling comeback."

"Dreamed that," Connor mumbles, but he doesn't really mean it - he knows it happened, now, there are fuzzy Technicolor images floating around in the back of his mind. What he means is, Jesus fuck, I wish that'd been a dream, what the fuck did we do that for?

"No," Murphy says, and he's moving his hand to rest protectively against the bandage on Connor's shoulder. Connor can see it now, blindingly white with a red-brown stained center, and the impact of a bullet shooting through his shoulder floods back. "It wasn't a dream. Wes saw on the telly in the station when we stopped, we've made a bit of a splash. In a good way."

"FBI?" Connor says. God, he hopes not - and he hopes that Smecker's not called, either, he'd just like to get back to Los Angeles in one piece and medicate with beer and a smoke and a long fuckin' nap, and then maybe a shag after he's slept for 18 hours. He really fuckin' hurts, and he's really starting to be pissed off that he fucked up bad enough that he ended up getting shot.

"Not yet," Wesley says from the front seat. "But probably soon."

If the FBI gets a team on them out here, maybe Smecker will let them come back to Boston, and that's what Connor'd like most in the world right now, to go back to Boston and get shot at by thugs he knows, at least, instead of nameless faceless security guards.

He hates that this life bears these risks, and he hates that these risks make faith a secondary question to safety, and he hates that somehow, somewhere, this slipped from their control into something bigger.

"Fuck," Connor says and closes his eyes, but he doesn't really mean it.

"Maybe later," Wesley says, and Connor pries one eye open again to see Wesley turned in his seat, smiling an eat-you-alive sort of smile.

And that look almost makes getting shot and revealing their location to the FBI and questioning his faith and bleeding all over Murphy and a rental car worth it, Connor thinks, before he slips back into sleep. He can hear Murph and Wesley talking around him, and the low murmur of his Da's few well-placed comments, as the car rolls across the desert and the pain in his shoulder starts to spread again.

"Someday, Da," Murphy hisses low, his breath ghosting across Connor's neck and his arms fiercely tight around Connor's waist, shoulders. "Someday one of us is going to get shot and we're not going to be able to ..." Murphy trails off and there's something like the shadow of a kiss at the back of Connor's neck, Murphy's lips almost not there at all.

"It is a risk that we take, my son," their Da says. "And it is a risk that you knew when you chose this life. Do not question it now."

"If it means I lose Connor," Murphy says. "I will second guess every fuckin' thing I know."

Wesley's voice is so quiet that Connor, almost asleep, nearly doesn't hear him. "Loss is a great motivator in seeking justice," Wesley says. "I know from my own experience."

Murphy hums against his ear, the small thoughtful noise he makes when he's not sure he agrees but he's willing to consider it, as Connor slips back into sleep.

There isn't a team of FBI agents with guns drawn when they pull into the alley behind Wesley's flat in Los Angeles, and Murphy's faintly glad for that. There's a light burning in a window that should be Wesley's, if Murphy recalls the layout of the place correctly. When he points it out, he'd have missed the frown that crosses Wesley's face if he hadn't been looking for it.

"I must have left it on when we departed," Wesley says awkwardly. "It was early in the morning, I'd used it to check the maps before we went."

Murphy isn't buying it, and Connor, clutching at Murphy's side with his bad arm and his wounded shoulder with his good arm, makes a snorting noise under his breath and stumbles against Murphy's side.

"If the FBI's sitting in your apartment waiting for us, Wes," Murphy says. "I'm going to have to wonder if you sold us out."

Wesley's eyes immediately shift from nervous to full-on hurt. "If I sold you out, Mr. MacManus, it was entirely unintentional. I would not do that."

Connor mumbles something against Murphy's neck that sounds an awful lot like, "You betrayed people before, you said so yourself," but maybe it's just Murphy projecting his own thoughts, and he's starting to worry about standing in a dark alley with Connor hardly able to get around by himself and most of their weapons in duffels in the boot of the SUV.

So instead of saying something that might turn Wesley's eyes back to the lifeless pits they were just a couple of days ago, Murphy hoists Connor on one side and a bag of guns on the other and says, "Let's go up, eh?"

"Better to get bit on the arse by the Bureau now than later," Connor mutters.

When they've struggled, luggage, poor martyred Connor and all, to Wesley's, Wes turns the key very slowly in the lock and shoves the door open an inch at the time. Murphy's free hand has crept back to the butt of his gun, just in case, but before the door slides open far enough for them to see into the room, a female voice, low and smoky, says, "It's just me, Wesley. Have you brought those charming MacManus boys with you?"

Wesley heaves a relieved-sounding sigh and Murphy's hand tightens on his gun - if he's right, it's the rich bitch lawyer who told them where Wesley was, back before their lives moved from unusual straight into surreal. "It's only Lilah," Wesley says. "She'd never bring anyone respectful and law-abiding into my flat."

So Murphy's right, and the rich bitch lawyer is sitting on Wesley's couch, long legs stretched out onto the table and a pile of video cassettes resting beside her high heels. She's drinking something clear over ice, and she says, "I had to wait, Wes, so I hope you don't mind - I helped myself to the gin in your freezer. Hi, boys. One of you get shot?"

"What are you doing here?" Wesley says, sounding guarded again, but Murphy's not sure it's because he doesn't trust her. Wesley's guarding against them, him and Connor and their Da, because he doesn't trust them not to shoot her on sight.

Wesley appears to have loyalties in two places, though when he was screaming Murphy's name yesterday morning, he didn't seem to care.

"Late last night," Lilah purrs, and she pats the seat beside her, a gold-plated invitation for Wes and Wes alone; Murphy watches him cross the floor cautiously, glance flickering between Lilah's long legs and the three of them, standing guarded and at attention by the door, unmoving. "A dear old colleague of mine telephoned from Las Vegas, where he'd just witnessed an execution on the floor of the Bellagio Casino, rather in the style of the infamous MacManus family. But it had to be a copycat job, because everyone knows that the MacManus family's hiding out underground in Boston, not in Las Vegas."

"Security cameras," Wesley sighs. "Right."

"Only I'd had all three members of that very same family in my office just a few days ago, looking for a close personal friend of mine - not to say I told this colleague this information - and he said he'd send along the security tapes, since he had a friend at the Bellagio, to see if these guys were more to Wolfram and Hart's liking than the MacManus family, since we'd had no luck with them."

"Do you have a point here, ma'am?" their Da says, his voice so low it's almost a growl.

"I have what appears to be the only set of tapes capturing your fantastic execution on video," Lilah murmurs, as though it is less important than Murphy knows it is, and she swings her legs off the table, skirt riding up to show the top of a gartered stocking, and sets her drink on the table before standing up. "And I thought that, in the effort of keeping your whereabouts a secret, you might be wantingt hem."

"What's the catch?" Connor says. Wesley's sitting on the edge of the couch, staring at his hands, and Murphy can see the tension, the fear, running straight up his back.

"No catch," Lilah says. "Just a little favor."

The trouble is that the religion's mixed Wesley's head all up. The rational side of his mind, the side that never wanted to believe in the Watcher's Council or the client base at Wolfram and Hart or even in Angel's existence, says these men are cold-blooded killers and nothing else. But the conviction they have in what they do, it makes him think - well, he's never believed in God before this. He might have been raised Church of England, but it was more about appearances and less about the faith that runs straight through every decision Connor and Murphy and Il Duce make.

The irrational side, the side that finds the depth of imagination in his logical mind to believe in vampires and demon dimensions, says that they truly are on a mission from a higher power, and he should step back and let them make their own decisions.

And it isn't as though he can warn them to stay away from Wolfram and Hart, since he's already tangled waist deep in the mire of their mess.

He's not got a leg to stand on, but some strange faith makes him believe that Connor, Murphy and their father might still.

"We don't do favors for people like you, and we don't do contract hits," Connor says immediately, not a breath's hesitation, and shrugs. "Sorry."

Il Duce stands stock-still and stares at Lilah with great interest, and Wesley thinks that he looks rather like he'd prefer to have her for lunch than do her any sort of favor.

Murphy frowns, and Wesley finds that Murphy's the one he's really watching, waiting to see how he'll react. Wesley can see the thoughts flicking across his face, and Murphy looks up and turns his head towards his brother, still wrapped around each other. Connor raises an eyebrow and Murphy jerks a shoulder, a tiny shrug, and Wesley can see the motions but not the intent.

He's holding his breath and it isn't until the room starts to swim that he realizes it.

Lilah says, "I've got no problem handing these tapes over to the FBI immediately, you know. I'm sure that Wesley's told you - I work for the big bad law firm in this town, and I've already sold my soul away."

"What a terrible thing, ma'am," Murphy says. "Unfortunately for you, we can hide better than the FBI can seek, and turning the tapes over to them won't do you a single bit of good."

"But wouldn't you rather have them," Lilah says, "to remind you of your triumphant return to the public eye?"

"We remember everything," Connor says. "It keeps us true to our path."

"But my brother might have been a little hasty in turning down your polite offer," Murphy says. "We're just not sure we're interested in having Wolfram and Hart in our debt, or why you need us to kill someone when your firm has enough resources to handle it themselves."

"Oh," Lilah says, and she drops her voice low in a way that makes Wesley shiver. It's the tone she uses when they're clawing and spitting at each other, before they collapse across the floor and fuck until they're stupid, but it isn't the shiver of anticipation that usually runs along his nerves. It's a terrified shiver, a shiver because he continues to underestimate her, and he's nearly certain he knows exactly what she's about to ask. "Oh," she says again, throaty and low. "That's not the sort of favor I need at all. It's a personal favor, not professional. I've just always desperately wanted to have a set of twins together."

Wesley's frozen, hardly able to turn his own head to gauge their response, but he manages, moving through gelatin to watch them. Murphy's face flares with anger and offense immediately, and the arm around Connor's waist tightens minutely. Connor's still groggy from painkillers, in the way that makes him slow to process Lilah's direct meaning, and when he does, his eyes are wary but the corner of his mouth is twitching as though he almost wants to smile. Il Duce has covered his mouth with one hand, and if Wesley wasn't mistaken, he's trying not to laugh - but he might be hiding shock and fierce disapproval. Wes is never sure with the elder MacManus.

Lilah stretches, cat-like, and picks her glass up from the table, finishing the rest of the gin in a single swallow. When she sets it down, she collects the half dozen video tapes on the table and says, "Why don't you just think about it? Wes, I'll phone tomorrow."

She sails out the door, tapes tucked neatly under her arm, and the door slams behind her into a stunned silence in Wesley's living room.

"Everyone in this city is fuckin' insane," Connor says, wrenching himself away from Murphy's side and hobbling over to the couch where he collapses, leaning heavily against Wesley's side. "Fuck."

"What the fuck was that?" Murphy says. "What the fuck are we supposed to do about that?"

Wesley doesn't quite have answers to either of those questions, but before he can say so, Murphy's pager starts to buzz.

"Smecker," says Murphy, peering at the digital display.

"Fuck, twice," Connor says.

"You must be on the news," Wesley says, and Connor looks over at him like, you don't have anything better to say than that?

Which, of course, he doesn't, because now that God and evil law firms and attractive men with Irish accents have gotten mixed up in his life, he's sort of forgotten how to form complete sentences that have anything to do with anything.

"I need a drink," Murphy says.

"Bring the bottle," Wesley says.

Smecker doesn't shout too much when Connor calls him back, which is a blessing. He sounds a little drunk, like he was the time Rocco almost shot the good priest in the head in the confessional, and he says, "First Kate tells me that you three faggots have fucked off to Las Vegas, with someone she says is a rogue demon hunter, and, Connor, I don't even fucking want to know about that, and then the Bureau Chief calls and says that some fucking casino is reporting a killing on the fucking casino floor and they think it's you three fucks, but no one's got any fucking tape because it's all bloody disappeared, and WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS GOING ON OUT THERE?"

"We're back in Los Angeles," Connor offers.

Murphy shouts from the kitchen, "And Connor got shot again, the dumb bastard!"

"I am bankrolling you three to stay out of trouble until I can bring you home and keep a goddamned eye on you myself, and I am not bankrolling you to go haring off to whatever city you please with whomever you please at a moment's notice, Connor, and you know that perfectly well, and you have just blown your fucking cover all to shit!"

"That's not exactly true," Connor says, polite and reasonable as he can manage. "Someone got the tapes."

"Is it that lawyer bitch who called me? She wanted to sell them to me," Smecker says. "I know what you bastards look like, I don't need to see it on fucking tape again."

"Us, too," Connor says. "What'd she want from you?"

"A lot of money and the FBI to stop investigating her law firm," Smecker says. "You?"

"Me and Murph to sleep with her," Connor says. "Together."

"You sleep with women?" Smecker says. "What the hell for?"

There's a pause, and Connor hears liquid sloshing against glass on the other end of the phone; Smecker taking a long pull from a bottle, he guesses. He lets the silence on the line spin out while Murphy bangs around the kitchen and their Da sits in the corner, smoking another cigar and staring thoughtfully at Wesley.

"You going to?" Smecker finally says.

"Probably not," Connor says.

"Then get your lousy Irish asses back to Boston, you fuck, where I can keep an eye on you," Smecker says. "And do it soon, before the Bureau starts looking at the goddamned airline records and bus schedules."

"We're not quite through here," Connor says. "But we'll call you when we get back into town. We'll have dinner, okay? Bye now!"

He slams the phone down just as Murphy walks into the room, juggling a bottle of vodka and four glasses. "It's all that's left," Murph says apologetically, and Connor's not sure who he's apologizing to. "She drank a whole bottle of gin."

"What does Federal Agent Smecker need from us, son?" their Da says.

"Wants us to come back to Boston," Connor says, "where he can, as he put it, 'keep an eye on our lousy Irish asses'."

"And what did you tell him?"

"That we're staying here until a better offer comes along."

"Good plan," Murphy says. "Vodka? Smoke? Female lawyer with legs for days?"

"Vodka and a fag, please," Connor says. "Da? Vodka?"

"I think I can partake this once," their Da says. "Mr. Wyndham-Pryce? Are you joining us?"

Connor swings his head around to where he'd left Wesley sitting on the couch when he'd called Smecker back. He hasn't moved, still staring at his hands blankly, brow furrowed like he's trying to solve the mysteries of the world. Connor snags a glass of vodka out of Murphy's hand - "hey," Murph says, "that was mine!" and swipes at Connor. Wesley hardly blinks as Connor sags down onto the couch beside him.

"Wes," Connor says, nudging him with a shoulder. "Something you need to tell us?"

"Hmmmm?" Wesley says, and his eyes are strangely unfocused when he swings around to stare at Connor.

"You okay, man?" Murphy says, passing a glass of vodka over to their Da and settling on Wesley's other side. "Maybe about your girlfriend who was just here?"

"Ah," Wesley says, and he shakes his head and takes the glass that Murphy's offering him. "No. Just that ... it's probably not in your best interest to give in to Lilah's - Ms. Morgan's demand."

"I wouldn't say it was a demand," Murph leers. "More like a proposition."

"She's a fine looking woman," Da says. "Intelligent, too, if a bit misguided, but I'm afraid that I'll have to concur with Mr. Wyndham-Pryce in suggesting that you not have any sort of sexual relations with ... Ms. Morgan."

"How's it worse than sleeping with ..." but Murphy doesn't finish the sentence, because Connor's reached across Wesley and slapped a hand over his mouth. Connor doesn't know what Murphy's going to say, but he doesn't want to know, even if Lilah Morgan's the best looking woman he's seen in years and he disagrees with his Da completely.

"I hold my tongue, for the most part," Da says, "because you're grown men who can make their own decisions, right or wrong, and because I was not part of your childhood, but I feel that, at this point in your lives, it is necessary to remind you that extra-marital sexual relations are, in fact, a mortal sin. And no amount of incriminating evidence, my boys, is worth that sin on your souls."

Wesley blushes. Murph leans back on the couch and grins wolfishly.

Connor lets it slide by like Ma's warnings of hellfire and brimstone and says, "So how do we get the tapes?"

Their Da says, "A careful plan. One unlikely to result in anyone being shot, but even that I cannot guarantee." He drinks down the vodka in his glass. "Are we in agreement, then?"

Connor'd shag the lawyer bird in a split-second, no second thoughts, but his Da's shot him once and it's not a life experience he's in a hurry to relive, not with two fresh wounds in his shoulder.

Better to agree and no one ends up hurt, or so they can always hope.

Murphy gets up to take a piss - he hates vodka, never gets him drunk and he's got to piss it out half an hour after he's drunk it, what's the point of that? - and when he gets back, Connor's stolen his seat and the bottle. And he's got his good arm stretched out on the back of the couch, not touching Wesley, but certainly suggesting, This is mine.

Which just makes Murphy crankier, because he's been the good guy this whole time, not the one getting shot (twice in one fuckin' week, which is just ridiculous, even for Connor), not the one salivating visibly all over Wesley before they tag-teamed him in the hotel, and here's Connor again, bottle between his legs, acting like he owns the place.

"Lilah's an intelligent woman," Wesley's saying earnestly to their Da. "You won't be able to surprise her like you could most people. And ..." Wesley pauses, and there's something flashing in his eyes as Murphy drops back down onto his other side and jerks the vodka bottle out of Connor's hands, something that looks like affection. "And I'd hate to see her get hurt."

"No women, no children," Connor says and Wesley's head whips from where it was focused on the cloud of smoke that sometimes passes for their father to glance between Murphy and Connor, eventually focusing on Connor's face. Seeing this bird really set Wes off, Murphy can tell. He's jumpy like a rabbit, like he was before. The Wesley who came back from Vegas had the same qualities, but he didn't look quite so ready to jump straight out of his skin, not even when he was pulling a fuckin' bullet out of Connor's shoulder.

"We don't shoot women, we don't shoot children," Murphy clarifies. "And we don't feel up strippers who pass out."

Connor snorts into his chest, his head tipped down and his hand snaking out to run his fingers through the hair at the nape of Wesley's neck; Wes freezes, eyes fixed on Connor's face still and thigh tense against Murphy's own leg, and then Connor drops his hand from Wesley's neck and stretches out for Murphy's hand, fingers tangling together.

"So you're saying you won't kill Li - Ms. Morgan, for those tapes?" Wesley says, so formal it makes Murphy's stomach hurt. He's had this guy's dick in his mouth, and Wesley thinks they care who else he sleeps with?

Or maybe it's something else, something bigger with the lawyer bitch that they're just not getting. Wes is close-mouthed like that, and if Murphy hadn't seen the look she'd given him, he'd never have known that they stepped into territory that might have belonged to someone else first.

"We would never kill a woman, even a woman of Ms. Morgan's dubious associations," their Da says. "It's a standard we have always held to."

"Mostly," Connor says with a wink, and his hand is drifting back towards the skin between Wesley's collar and his hairline. "Mostly because woman don't get up to quite the same shit that men do, really."

"So consequently, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce, if we would like those tapes - and I most certainly would, they'll be an excellent addition to my scrap book" - here Murphy can't help but snicker, because who'd have thought his Da had a fuckin' sense of humor, but he does, and it's just the strangest thing sometimes - "we need a cunning plan."

"I got a plan," Murphy says before he thinks about it, but then everybody's looking at him, and Wesley's wearing this expression that says, oh, boy, this I got to hear. "We go to her place, let her think she's getting what she wants, and then we handcuff her to the bed and take off with the tapes."

"Handcuffs," Connor snorts and swigs from the vodka bottle again. "You and the fuckin' handcuffs."

"Would you prefer some fuckin' rope?" Murphy snaps, and Connor snickers so hard Murphy's afraid vodka's going to come out his nose.

Wes has turned red, and he's coughing like he might be choking and Murphy can't tell if it's a good sort of noise or a bad sort of noise - like, these two brothers I just had really dirty sex with in a hotel room in Las Vegas are going to handcuff my almost-girlfriend, who also might be evil, to her bed under the pretense of having a threesome with her, relieve her of surveillance tapes that neither of them should have. Murphy agrees: how the hell do you react to that except by choking? So he thumps Wesley on the back until Wes stops coughing, but he still won't look up at Murphy, which is probably for the best because if he does, Murphy might start laughing, too.

Da's sitting in the chair, looking beatific and positively beaming, which is equally freaky as Wesley's situation, because their Da doesn't grin like that. "Murphy, my son, you do have moments of brilliance."

When Wesley was young, when he was studying Sumerian and Fyarl and all the others languages his father promised he would use someday, when things got too weird, or too surreal, or too anything - he'd crawl into a tiny space in his mind and pretend that his life wasn't the weirdest bloody life in the history of the planet. If he'd known then what he knew now, his twelve-year-old self would have been greatly relieved to know there were lives far stranger. Angel's life, for instance, a vampire cursed with a soul and a newly-minted teenage son who shouldn't have existed, or the life of the MacManus brothers, professional religious vigilantes.

His was not the oddest life currently in existence on the great planet Earth, but there were moments when it did not feel that way.

The last seven days, for example, were among the strangest days he'd ever lived through, and he'd survived a Slayer detonating several hundred tons of dynamite inside her high school on the day of her graduation, which was pretty high on his personal scale which included vampires with souls up through alternate universes with human slaves.

Being implicated in the murder of three mob bosses in Las Vegas and blackmailed by the woman he was sleeping with surpassed the whole explosion thing, though.

You didn't get weirder than that, except when there were plans involving handcuffs and a whole lot of sex appeal. It wasn't a plan that the Watchers' Council ever would have approved.

Wesley loved it, and he had no doubt in his mind that it would fail spectacularly.

"Ms. Morgan," he says, "is much smarter than she appears, and she has enormous resources at her disposal. Handcuffs and sex appeal are certainly a solid plan, but I would recommend having a secondary plan as well. Just so nothing goes wrong, you understand, not because I underestimate your considerable talents."

"Back-up?" Murphy says. "We don't really do back-up, but I suppose it can't hurt."

"You think we need back-up, we'll take back-up," Connor says. "You can come with us to visit your nice lawyer friend, Wes."

And the weird just kept on coming.

Wesley gets up to call Lilah and tell her that they'll come by her apartment tomorrow, in the evening, is 7 okay, and when he hangs up and walks back into the living room, Connor and Murphy have fallen asleep on the couch, curled into each other like children. It stops him for a moment, in the doorway, and he remembers that they're twins, that this is how they must have been before they were born, and it's just so hard to comprehend: thoughtful, logical Connor, skeptical of everything but God; and noisy, exuberant Murphy, willing to believe in anything that he can't see but not much that he can.

They're more alike than different, but you wouldn't look at them and think "twins" anymore than you would look at Wesley and think "falling apart quietly without much fuss but certainly a lot of emotional mess."

But they are, and he is, and this week has simply made him realize that he's got to claw at something to stop his freefall into some place ever less accessible than Angel's box at the bottom of the sea, and if it's the MacManus brothers and if it's Lilah - he'll make the accommodations necessary.

Wes raises an eyebrow at their father, sitting in the corner with his empty glass, and Il Duce doesn't move except to exhale a plume of smoke and crook an eyebrow back at Wesley, as though to say, Well, they're asleep, can we drink something real?

"Daithi," Il Duce says, as Wesley's standing. "My name. Feel free to use it."

He masks his surprise at this confidence by retrieving his good bottle of Scotch from behind the toilet - the one place in his whole flat that Lilah would never think to check - and he fishes two clean glasses out of the dishwasher, and he sits down across the table from Il Duce and pours them each a glass.

"They're good boys," the elder MacManus says, unprompted, following Wesley's gaze to the sleeping heap of twins on the couch. "They're just like puppies sometimes, too much energy and not enough foresight."

"I'm amazed that they weren't killed before now," Wesley says.

"I shot them both once," Daithi says, almost casually, as though shooting his sons was something every father did every day. "Not fatally, of course, but certainly the wounds were grievous. It would have been a terrible shame if I'd killed them accidentally; they're quite good at what we do, when they're not clogging up their minds with pretty women and men. Not, mind you, that I think you're anything but an asset to our operation. Just that my boys don't need the added distractions. This is not just a job, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce, this is a vocation. A calling, if you will."

"I understand that completely," Wesley says, and he thinks about his father, who he hasn't seen in years, not since the Council turned up to tell him his services weren't needed any longer, and all because his Slayer was a little more strong-minded than most. "Duty is something not enough people think of these days." He pauses, parsing through what Daithi's said, and he knows he's getting the brush-off here, polite as can be and all it isn't you, it's them, but it's a brush-off and Connor and Murphy, headstrong as they are, they listen to their father.

But what's sticking in his brain isn't the hurt that will ache in the future, when they've disappeared out of his life and taken all their fun with them, it's the fact that - "You shot your own sons?"

"It was merely a case of mistaken identity and an unfortunate connection of mine to the Italian Mafia in Boston. As I said, I did not shoot either Connor or Murphy fatally before I realized that they were, in fact, my sons, and carrying out a better sort of work than I had been." He leans close to Wesley, like it's almost a secret, and Wesley, glass of Scotch still untouched, leans toward him unconsciously. "Mr. Wyndham-Pryce, I am very grateful for all the help you've given we three in Los Angeles; it's been beyond repayable. But this is not the sort of place for us, and I worry that my sons will make connections here that it is not wise for them to have in our line of business. It is one thing for Connor and Murphy to be willing to die for each other, but I cannot have them extending that luxury to anyone else. When we have acquired these tapes, if there is anything else with which you require our help, I will be happy to oblige you, but I will be taking my sons back home to Boston as soon as Federal Agent Smecker can arrange safe transport for us. I hope you understand."

Wesley says, "Completely." His sigh, involuntary and long, sounds loud in the quiet room, and Murphy stirs on the couch but doesn't wake.

He understands completely, but, like with Angel, it doesn't mean he has to like it.

He just has to live with it.

Connor wakes up with his face pressed against the back of Murphy's knee, his hand halfway down Murphy's pants, and a horrible shooting pain in his shoulder, but after peeling his eyes open, he determines that he's wearing pants and no one is covered in anything sticky, so he probably hadn't done anything he wasn't supposed to the night before.

Probably hadn't, but probably was never as good as definitely, and that means that Murphy has to take his foot out of Connor's crotch and get the fuck off the couch so they can go to Mass, but Murphy isn't budging.

He sighs and drops his face against Murphy's thigh and closes his eyes just a little bit, cataloguing the aches and pains. Shoulder - gun shot wound, right; knee - underneath both of Murphy's legs and full of pins and needles; erection - really fuckin' hard and not a single good looking English bloke around to take care of it.

He tries once more, and this time succeeds in twisting out from under Murphy, complete with forceful shove, and Murph sprawls across the floor with a thump, a mess of blankets around his legs and sleepy creases at his eyes.

Murphy isn't an Englishman with a nice arse, but he does look passably fuckable in the absence of aught else, and Connor's about to pounce when his father clears his throat from the corner of the room. Connor remembers - Los Angeles, Mass, a lady lawyer with nice legs and a load of blackmail material on them, right, back to reality which means, of course, no pouncing on his brother and getting rid of his fuckin' morning wood.

"What the fuck?" Murphy says, still half asleep. "Fuck you, Connor, sleep in your own bed."

"You were sleeping on a couch, dipshit, not your bed," Connor says. "And get up, we're going to Mass."

Wesley sticks his head out of the kitchen door at that moment, a steaming cup of tea in his hand. "There's a Catholic church just around the corner," he says. "I've never been, but my next-door neighbor goes every day and says the priest is quite wonderful."

In addition to the sunshine, the health food, the no-smoking-indoors laws, and Los Angeles in general, Connor also hates every single church he's set foot into in this god-forsaken city. And it is God-forsaken, no God Connor believes in can condone the filth and corruption that churns this city forward like an engine, and Connor's not surprised that the churches are just as fake, light and airy and with no sense of occasion, no sense of what it all really means - but the ritual is comforting, and even when he's angrier walking out than he is walking in, he loves the two and a half minutes of lightness that come immediately after leaving the confessional.

The two and a half minutes where he could be hit by a truck and everything would be alright, the two and a half minutes where he never questions anything about his life.

So if this church is only half as bad as the rest he's stepped into here, he'll be happy. "Wesley," he says. "Can I use the shower?"

"Certainly," Wesley says, and he's clean-shaven and buttoned up like he hasn't been since they ran into him in that bar - not a trace of leather, just clean pressed shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, clean pressed slacks, dress shoes even inside. "Through the bedroom, and there are clean towels already. Help yourself."

He retreats back into the kitchen without another word and Connor thinks, did I miss something? These pieces aren't adding up.

He hauls Murph to his feet on his way to the bath and presses his mouth to Murphy's ear. "Did you piss him off last night?"

"Mmmmm?" Murphy says, still staggering with sleep. Connor's never met anybody who liked to sleep as much as his fuckin' brother did. "No."

"Did you hear Da say something, then? Because Wesley's turned everything off, and I liked him the other way."

"No," Murphy says, and slumps against Connor.

"What the fuck," Connor says.

"Yes," Murphy agrees, and slumps off Connor's good shoulder back onto the couch, practically snoring before he hits the cushions.

Mass is Mass, and confession is confession, and Murphy goes along grumbling after Da extracts him from the sofa and his blankets by an ear, like Ma used to do when they'd balk at going to Church back home. Made Connor laugh, and Wesley leaned nervously on the kitchen door, hands tight on the mug he was drinking from, but he didn't say anything.

Somebody said something, Connor's sure, or else Wesley just decided that they really weren't his cup of tea but was too fuckin' polite to say so.

When they get back, and Connor's two and a half minutes of grace are long gone, Wesley's sitting on the sofa doing a fuckin' crossword puzzle and wearing a fuckin' pair of glasses, which they hadn't seen a single glimpse of before now. He looks up when Murphy and Connor tumble through the door, fighting about Murphy's stupid fuckin' obsession with handcuffs and Connor's stupid fuckin' obsession with rope, and hardly blinks. "Ms. Morgan's expecting us at 6:30," he says. "I'll drive. Make sure you have everything you need, and I'd wear ankle holsters instead of shoulder holsters; your pants will likely stay on longer than your shirts."

Then he climbs off the couch, walks into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him, and Connor doesn't see him again until quarter to six, when he walks out, shrugging into one of their shoulder holsters, securing the Glock into the left side, and pulling his coat over it.

Connor's too polite, his Ma raised him too well, to ask point-blank, what the fuck's your problem. Not with his Da in the room. Hurts like hell when one of them gets ahold of your ear, and Connor's shoulder's still busy hurting actively, instead of healing passively, so he's not up for much more pain.

He hopes fleetingly that the lady lawyer's not into that kind of shit, because it's got its place, but it sure isn't what he's up for tonight.

Wesley's standing by the door, back straight and eyes on the floor, and says, "We should leave now."

Connor and Murph careen around the room, and first Murph can't find his fuckin' handcuffs, and Connor's missing a boot, and their Da's just laughing at them, sitting in the fuckin' corner and laughing at them looking like a goddamned cartoon show, and by the time they finally get out the door, Connor's so pissed at the way Wes is acting and the way their Da was laughing his head off that he's almost in the mood to blow the lady lawyer's fuckin' head off.

No offense intended to all the other women in the world, but yesterday he had a grasp on the way his fucked-up life works, and today he doesn't, and it's enough to make a guy cross the line a little.

Murphy knows there's a name for the sort of slapstick, mistaken-identity comedy that happens on television and in movies, but he can't remember what it is - begins with an f, something French, he just can't pull the name up off the tip of his tongue.

Lilah Morgan answers the door dressed as though she's just come from work - except that the buttons on her shirt are unbuttoned a little too far, and her hair's a little too messy. Murphy doesn't usually go for this kind of bird - her sort of sexy is too practiced, like she's got to work at it, like it's all an act. But the lady lawyer's got something else going for her: an edge of wildness underneath that polished-practiced act, so he won't write her off yet.

Soon, but not yet.

She runs her fingers over Murphy's chest when he steps through the door, pinches his left nipple hard, and he tries not to jump. "Have a seat," she drawls. "Anywhere you want."

She's running her fingers through Connor's hair when she sees Wesley framed in the door past Connor's shoulder. He's looking past her, straight at Murphy, and Murphy isn't sure what he's reading in Wesley's eyes - they've gone dark and cloudy, and maybe it's lust, but maybe it's just nothing at all.

"Oh, Wesley," Lilah purrs. "I didn't know that you were coming. I had no idea that you were into ... voyeurism."

"I'm not," Wesley says, and his voice is thick, choked-off. "I'm the back-up."

"Wes," she says, pushing past Connor with a pat on his ass, a clear dismissal, and Murphy really fuckin' hates being treated like a piece of meat; Connor's face says he's not real fond of it, either. "Do you really think I'd do anything to these boys that would require back-up from you?"

There's a vein twitching in Wesley's temple, he's still staring past her at Murphy, and the expression on his face is clear this time: see? I told you you'd need back-up. Murphy will give him that, because this lady lawyer's fuckin' crazy. "Lilah," he says, and he's pitched his voice low and seductive, the whiskey-burn voice they'd heard in the bar last week, which seems to Murphy to be forever and an age ago. "I don't trust you farther than I can throw you, and it's my impression that the MacManus brothers trust you even less. I stay here or our deal is off."

"Which deal's that, Wes?" she says, breaking away from him and trailing towards the open door, one corner of a large bed visible through the doorway. "The one about the tapes, or is it the other one? Yours and mine, I mean."

"Both," Wes growls, and Lilah shrugs one elegant shoulder delicately. If Murphy hadn't been watching his face, he'd have missed the expression shuddering across Wesley's features, disgust and desire mixed together. Murphy knows that face; he's seen it on half the fuckin' scumbags they shot in the head, right before the bullets blew their brains out.

"Well, boys, if you're coming, then come," she says, and Murphy thinks that the sort of double talk that looks good on Connor just looks cheap on her. But that's the whole point of this: get her into bed, lock her up, and make off with the tapes before anybody can get on their tails. Connor follows her, looking vaguely queasy - vodka or lawyer, Murphy's not sure what the problem is - and Wes puts a hand on the butt of his gun before he cocks his head at Murphy and points. The message is clear - you got the handcuffs, you get in there behind him.

So Murphy goes, but the problem turns out to be that they can't get the fuckin' lady lawyer into bed. Wesley's right, she's a slippery one, and she's got them stripping each other, though they don't manage to finish the job, while she's kissing and touching and licking her way between them. She's got Murphy panting and drooling, dick hard in his pants without his permission, and Connor still looking queasy but cool as a cucumber and, unfortunately, sprawled on a sofa underneath a big window. Wesley's sitting in the corner, jacket pulled back to show the butt of the gun, underneath his hand, and his eyes are hooded but alert, like he's ready for something really fuckin' bad to happen and he'll stop it.

It goes to hell faster than that. Murphy can see the tapes, sitting on top of the wardrobe in the corner, an arm's reach from Connor. Lilah's leaning on the arm of Wesley's chair, the perfect place to slap the cuffs on, take the tapes, shove Connor back into his clothes and go out the window, down the fire escape and off to freedom, or at least Wesley's flat.

He bets that the lady lawyer might be smarter than he is, but he's quicker, if he's marked his target right. He's fingering the cuffs, tucked in his jeans at the small of his back, and just like that, a tiny split-second where she's not all over him, he tilts his head at Connor, get a nod and darts. When he's breaking toward the chair, cuffs clearly in hand, he sees a naked flash out of the corner of his eye that has to be Connor grabbing for the tapes, and he sees a black-and-white blur that has to be Wesley.

The trouble is that one second the cuffs were in his left hand, ready to snap across the lawyer bitch's wrist trapped in his right, and the next, one cuff's around his fuckin' wrist, wound through the arm of the chair, and the other one's attached to Wesley's wrist. There's a strangled sort of sound from the place where Connor's been sitting, and Murphy looks up - the lawyer bitch is standing by the window, and Connor's stark naked on the fire escape outside it, locked out, tapes clutched to his chest.

She's got her arms crossed across her chest, looking smugly satisfied with herself. "You should know better than to fuck with me, Wesley," she says, and it's satisfaction and desire in her voice, too. Murphy's really fuckin' sure he's missed a page or six in this particular book, because he's just not following. She turns to him. "I assume you have keys to the cuffs, Mr. MacManus?"

"I ... no." He doesn't. They're in Wesley's flat, safe with their Da - they'd meant to send Wesley back over here to let her go tomorrow morning.

"Poor planning, Mr. MacManus. Wes, hair pins?"

"Please," Wesley says, and his voice is almost imperceptibly hurt.

Lilah fishes through a box on the wardrobe and comes up with a handful of hair pins. "I'm going out," she says. "Free yourselves, take the tapes, they're not worth that much to me." She drops the pins into Wesley's outstretched hand and leans close to Murphy's ear, her breath hot along the shell. "I'm not monogamous by any stretch, Mr. MacManus, but I am territorial. You and your brother, amusing as you are, should leave well enough alone."

When she straightens, she glances at Wesley, pins clenched tightly in his hand. "I'll be in touch, Wes."

She's gone before Murphy can straighten his brain out and tell her to go fuck herself. Except he wouldn't, because he'd never say that to a lady. But he's pretty fuckin' sure he just got told to keep his dick in his pants by a lady lawyer with more brains than everybody else in the room, and it's a little startling.

To say the least.

Wesley's been stock-still the whole time, pins in his hand, and after the door slams, he swallows deeply, just once, and Murphy watches him pick the locks on the cuffs. Wesley's eyes are dead again, nothing there at all, and he won't meet Murphy's gaze. They get themselves out of the cuffs and get Connor back in off the fire escape - he's raving pissed off, furious about the whole thing - while Murphy's watching Wesley leaning against a wall, Connor says, "I hate L.A. Fuckin' useless excuse for a city. Angels, my arse."

Murphy watches Wesley. Wesley doesn't blink, and his eyes slide right over Murphy's face like he isn't even there.

There are lights along the Santa Monica pier, deterrents for frantically necking teenagers, and for criminals looking for a place to toss bodies, unless you are Wesley.

This is where he comes now, to think about where his life took a turn that could be classified as wrong. It's where, he thinks absently, he forged this short-lived partnership with this unusual family, and it's a fitting place for more than one sort of good-bye.

He knows the box that runs the power line to those lights. He knows how to open it and how to diffuse the security system, and before they walk to the end of the pier, he opens the box and cuts the lines, and they watch the streetlights flooding the boards of the pier blink out one by one, until it would be too dark to see if not for the light of the nearly-full moon glancing across the ground.

What he remembers is the way that Connor's cigarette burned in the darkness, throwing his eyes into shadow whenever he inhales, the tip flaring bright with oxygen and fire. Darkness mutes sight but not smell, not touch - Murphy's right hand falls across his left hand, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on Wesley's knuckles, brushing gently but not settling, and Connor's cigarette burns smoke into his nose.

Everyone is quiet, and Wesley can't think of anything he needs to say that hasn't been said already.

The darkness is a blessing and the quiet crash of the water below them a reminder. Somewhere underneath this ocean, Angel is trapped - Angel, who reminded Wesley every day what he was fighting for, a better place to love. Angel, who manages to be a moral compass even when he's gone, even when Wesley's betrayed him

Wesley stands in the dark and envies the MacManus brothers their faith, their depth of belief in what they do. He has no compass for his life but Angel, and in the dark, on the Santa Monica pier, cigarette smoke burning against the back of his throat, he wishes fruitlessly for something bigger.

"Are you going to leave him down there, then?" Murphy says, breaking the silence, and Wesley can hear the creak of the boards behind him, Daithi having left them to their silence as long as they wanted it, but unwilling to leave his sons to discussion that might affect his plans. It's an ending, standing here tonight in the dark, and he knows it because Daithi had bus tickets in hand when they walked back into the apartment.

Wesley doesn't know how he got them, but he knows that Daithi's taking his sons somewhere he thinks is safer as soon as they've finished this business, standing on the pier. "No," Wesley says. "Not forever, at least. He reminds me of the things I'm supposed to be doing right."

"Hard to do that in a box in the ocean," Connor agrees with a snort, and he tosses his cigarette from the pier. Wesley watches the ember spin out over the dark of the water, until it blinks out. If Wes listens hard, he thinks he can hear the hiss of burning tobacco hitting water.

"Indeed," Wesley says. "You'll go back to Boston?"

"Perhaps," Daithi says. "Eventually. Too many people interested in where we are."

"Anonymity," Wesley says. "Infamy and anonymity are a rather difficult combination."

"Leave the fuckin' vampire in the box," Murphy says quietly. "Come to Boston with us."

If it wasn't dark by his own doing, Wesley would have turned and stared at Murphy; he does turn, tries to focus on Murphy's face, something other than Murphy's fingers laced through his own on the railing of the pier. But it's dark, and even at six inches away, Wesley can't read the expression on his face. Murphy's head is down, his eyes masked in shadow, and the moon is casting phantom light along his jaw, reflecting his image the way it reflects the sun.

Wesley says nothing. Connor's lighter clicks in the silence; the flare of red turns Wesley's face to him. He's staring at the sky, blowing a plume of smoke straight up, and his eyes are unreadable. Neither of the twins are giving anything away, and Wesley doesn't want them to.

It's a central fact of his existence: everyone walks out, sooner or later, and he'd rather have sooner - it hurts less.

"Everyone needs a moral purpose," Wesley finally says to Murphy, bending his head close to Murphy's ear. "The vampire is mine."

Murphy shrugs, making a sound that's half laughter and half sob, and Connor's hand reaches in front of Wesley's face to pass his brother the cigarette. Murphy's breathing is ragged and short as he inhales, and he offers it to Wesley before passing it back to Connor.

The silence is almost deadly, and it's broken by the faint sound of a car, rumbling towards them; Wesley knows that it's the sound of their inevitable departure and his inevitable return to a life that's missing some of its pieces.

When the engine noise cuts to a halt, Wesley turns and sees the outline of taxi, waiting at the end of the pier, half in and half out of a pool of light, one of the streetlights whose fuses remain intact. Murphy heaves a sigh and Daithi straightens from where he's leaned along the railing. "Mr. Wyndham-Pryce," he says, hand extended. "It has not been a pleasure, but it has certainly been interesting."

Wesley shakes his hand and Daithi moves away, walking slowly up the pier. Three steps away and he's faded, black coat and dark hat and a wreath of smoke, into the darkness.

Connor wraps him in a hug, and that's surprising, that's what's surprised him more than the violence or the religion or the sex, the fact that they give physical comfort so easily. Wesley freezes for a moment, bo