Slowly Sinking

FANDOM: Angel, illness Fred/Wes
SPOILERS: Season 3
DISCLAIMER: almighty Joss and Company owns Wesley, look Fred, and any other characters from Angel and or Buffy.

They haunted him in his dreams.  Every night was the same… Walking from the car with Connor warmly nuzzled in his arms.  Then Justine with the knife and taking Connor away.  And then the worst…

As he lay close to death on the grass, he could feel the life drizzling out of his throat.  The sadness in his heart yearned for it.  He welcomed the end.  It was always at that time that they all showed up to stand over him.

Gunn, Fred, Angel… even Cordelia.  They were strings always tieing him to sanity and the world.  They had always been there for each other, and he had failed them.  Gunn’s string had been cut weeks ago and Angel’s had been cut when Connor was lost.  He reached out to touch them and they reached back, but they were always centimeters away.  The string between him and Cordeila was stretching and he couldn’t do anything about it.  Then, in a flash it snapped.  There was only one string left and he could feel it begin to stretch and-

Wesley awoke gasping for air and in a cold sweat.  He stumbled out of bed and into the darkness of the room.  All the blinds in the apartment had been closed tight for a week.  He blindly made his way to the bathroom before emptying what little he’d eaten the day before into the toilet.  He turned on the light and winced at the brightness.  Washing off his face he looked into the mirror.  The scar on his neck sneered back from the mirror.  Everyday he woke up to its glare.  It reminded him of the worst thing he’d ever done.

Wesley slammed the light switch off and hurried into the living room, forgetting there was another mirror there.  Once again his reflection mocked him and threatened to drive him crazy.  He could feel something surging and bubbling beneath the surface.  It wanted to take hold and scald him.  It wanted to drive him under.  It wanted to take over.

It had already tried a couple of times.  The tight watch and control he’d held since he was a child, to make sure it didn’t break through and he’d be like his father, had been unleashed in one moment.  All that work had been broken by Billy and unleashed him on who he loved more than anything.  It was at that moment he realized he was capable of the thing he most hated.  He’d gotten a taste for it then, and it had scared him to the core.  Was he a man like his father?  What kind of man was he?

Then at the ballet, when the Count had taken hold of him, It had resurfaced again.  It had been waiting near the surface since then, waiting for another chance.  It was the true evil that didn’t care when it resurfaced for the third time and attacked Lorne.  It wanted more control.  Now he knew how Angel felt, constantly fighting against an invisible force within you.  Within him.  It was within him.  It wanted to come out and drive him under.  It wanted to take over.  He wanted to let it…

It would be so much easier to let it out and not fight,.  Not care and let it drive him into darkness.  It would be so easy to be his father and give in.  Be what he feared most.

He stared at the gash in the mirror.  It bubbled beneath the surface…and erupted.  In a moment of rage he slammed his hands into the mirror.  Over and over he slammed at himself in the mirror.  He smashed the mirror into a fractured and hollow structure of what it was.  Glass flew everywhere.  A knock came from the door.  Wesley stopped pounding and stared numbly at the empty frame, except for a few jagged remains of it’s former self that still clung to the frame.

The pounding intensified.  “Wesley?”  The voice sounded vaguely familiar.  The back of his mind that still clung on told him it was Fred.  “Wesley?  Open the door.  Let me in.”  She pounded again and again.

In order to make the noise go away, he reluctantly opened the door.  Fred stood outside with an expression of worry, surprise, and shock all in one.

She looked at his hands that were dripping blood on the floor.  “Oh my god.  What did you do, Wesley?”  When he didn’t reply she grabbed his wrist and started to pull him towards the bathroom.  “Come on, we have to get you-”

“No,” he mumbled to himself.

“Wesley, we have to stop-”

“No!”  He pulled from her grasp.  “Get out.”

“Wesley-”

He grabbed a piece of glass from the floor and charged at her.  He stood poised above her.  “Get out!”

Fred jumped back in fear that was also reflected in her eyes.  She hurried out of the apartment as he slammed the door on her heels.  Wesley pressed his body up against the cool door.  He couldn’t stop shaking from the thought of what he’d just done.  He couldn’t believe it had come out again.  The piece of glass fell to the floor and his body collapsed to the ground.  It was winning…

THE END