Title:
Broken Toys
Chapter
Title: It Was All A Fluke
Author:
Restive Nature
Disclaimer:
I do not own the rights
to Angel the Series. They belong to Whedon/ Greenwalt. Nor do I own
the rights to Dark Angel, which belong to Cameron/ Eglee and Fox. No
infringement is intended and this fiction is for private enjoyment
only.
Rating:
up to R
Chapter
Rating: PG-13
Genre:
Crossover
Type:
Romance, friendship
Pairing:
Wes/ Max Guevara
Summary:
She wasn't some fly by night girl. Too bad he and the rest of the
gang couldn't, or maybe wouldn't see that.
Spoilers/
Time line: Between season two and three of Angel. Starts of in the
summer while Angel is gone to Tibet to mourn Buffy's death. For Dark
Angel, pre-series, before Max leaves Los Angeles to go to Seattle to
investigate her brother's murders.
Feedback:
Always welcome!
Distribution:
Ask first please.
A/N:
Some of the information
on the time line of the time of Max and her siblings escape from
Manticore and when the series starts is taken from the Max Allan
Collins books, which were written for the television series.
Broken
Toys
Chapter
One
It Was
All A Fluke
“Hot
fresh tacos, as ordered!” Gunn announced loudly as he waltzed
through the doors of the Hyperion hotel. Wes and Cordy, his sometimes
co-workers barely glanced up as he neared the desk that served once
as a concierge's station, but was now where the phone of their
business, Angel Investigations, was prominently placed. Wes was
perched on a stool behing the counter there, having not settled into
the office as much as he had before. A time when Angel had first made
the move to, instead of ordering them around, asked to work for them.
Humbling himself in the lessons he had learned from dealing with his
ex-Vampire partners, Darla and Drusilla. Wes had learned quickly
enough that he missed all the gossip being in that back room.
At
first Wes had reveled in being in charge, chosen from his peers, by
his peers to be their leader. He had the knowledge, together they had
the resources and skills. And Cordy's visions. Visions that hadn't
stopped just because Angel's world fell apart, before or even lately,
though they had been light since her return from Pylea. Gunn knew
that Wes and Cordy were still down about that chick kicking the
bucket and after Angel had decided to get away from the real world,
going to Tibet on a retreat, Gunn had finally gotten the dirt on the
whole relationship.
But
the rest of them, though they mourned, had to get on with their
lives.
“I
still say that it was just a fluke,” Cordy snorted softly from her
position at her desk. She was ostensibly the secretary of the
business. Her visions guided them, yes, but she also did the filing,
billing and made some pretty execrable coffee.
“What
was a fluke?” Gunn wondered as he played with the handles of the
plastic bag. He glanced around, prepared for the disappointment. It
had been a month since they'd brought that skinny, white girl home
from their accidental excursion in Lorne's home world of Pylea and
she apparently still hadn't emerged from her room upstairs in the
hotel. He'd thought her skinny because she was malnourished from her
five year stint in a hell dimension, but after watching the bucket
loads of food the provided all disappearing into her body, he figured
out that she just burned it off quick with that nervous energy of
hers.
“Nothing,”
Wes muttered to himself, even as Cordelia stood, a pad of paper in
her hand and grinned at Gunn.
“His
dating Virginia Bryce,” she reminded him. Gunn sighed. Cordy had
been teasing Wes about his dateless nights, flaunting the one date
the girl had had that she'd counted as a success. After all, in their
lives, how many romantic partners were completely fine with a person
racing off at odd hours to deal with confidential problems and
sometimes coming home with freaky bits of goo clinging to any and all
parts of the body?
Being
a doctor might come close, but Gunn highly doubted that.
“It
wasn't a fluke, Cordelia,” Wes sighed, turning in his seat to watch
her progress to the filing cabinets. “Virginia and I had several
things in common, she was aware of the supernatural world and we
enjoyed our time together. It just wasn't meant to be.”
“Kinda
hard not to be aware of it when big daddy is trying to sacrifice ya
to his power hungry demon chick,” Gunn grunted, fully aware of how
Wes came to be acquainted with the Bryce family.
“Yeah,”
Cordy snorted. “Not arguing about that. Just really doubt it would
ever happen again.” She yanked open a drawer, seemingly at random,
tore a page off her pad of paper and stuffed it in before slamming
the drawer shut again. “I mean seriously Wes, you had me in high
school, Virginia in your golden years. Odds are, you might just get
lucky enough to meet a sweet gray haired lady that doesn't live with
thirty cats, sometime in the next few decades. And that'll be it.
Your quota of pretty girls is used up. As dry as the skin on your
nasty elbows.”
“Cordelia,
please!” Wes snapped. He turned himself straight again, glaring
down at the book he'd been using for his research. Something passed
between the girl and Gunn, both of them trying to repress their
smiles and neither succeeding.
“I'll
just take these up to Fred,” Cordy announced as she breezed around
the counter to snag the food Gunn had brought. “See, I have this
theory, that if I lay them out like a bread crumb trail, we might get
her out of hiding.”
“Or
the girl'll invent some long armed contraption thingamabob to just
reel 'em into her room,” Gunn shrugged one shoulder and Cordy,
halfway to the stairs, turned, sagging a little.
“You
tried it already?” she sighed. Gunn nodded and chuckled.
“Week
ago,” he confirmed, then held up his hand. “Twice.” Cordy shook
her head, rolling her eyes and turned to continue her tiny trek. Gunn
heard her muttering something about Angel getting back, the sooner
the better.
“Could
you grab me Moreshev's tome, please?” Wes asked glancing up
quickly.
“Sure,”
Gunn nodded. “We got a case?” He moved around the long counter to
the bookcase, looking over the dusty titles. Cleaning said office was
apparently not in Cordy's job description and none of the others were
keen on it either. It only seemed to be done out of boredom, lately.
“No,”
Wes sighed, slightly defeated. “There's just something bothering me
about one of our old cases and I thought I'd look into it.”
“So
once again, no payin' customers this week?” Gunn realized. “Man,
what I wouldn't do for a little excitement. The vamps is just
gettin' too easy.”
“Well,
I'm sure things would pick up once the demon community realizes that
Angel is on hiatus,” Wes commented, slightly snide. “Word just
hasn't gotten around yet.”
“Let's
hope it stays that way,” Gunn muttered and then straightened up,
tome in hand. “Did I seriously just say that? Nah, man, we need
some cases around here. Just not too much. Don't wanna get
overwhelmed or anything. Cause you know, gotta help my crew too.”
“Of
course,” Wes nodded absently as he accepted the book from the other
man.
“We
could also make our own excitement,” Gunn decided, leaning against
the counter.
“And
how would you propose we do that?” Wes muttered. Then hefted the
Moreshev's companion in his hand. He grinned at Gunn. “There's
always my theory about inducing visions.”
“Yeah,
but I don't think you could handle the aftermath,” Gunn chuckled.
“She might go down for the count when she has 'em, but Cordy whoop
your skinny white English ass you hit her wit' a book.”
“Unfortunately,
I think I have to agree with your assessment,” Wes grumbled. “If
only because as a gentleman I don't think I'd be able to hit her
back.”
“Well,
she can be a bit of a witch, you know what I mean?”
Wes
glanced up, contemplatively, looking off into the distance as he
realized what Gunn was implying and then grinned and shook his head.
“Still...” he trailed off, knowing that he wouldn't hit her.
Unless possessed, perhaps. Gunn's responding smirk seemed to imply
that he knew exactly how Wesley's mind was operating. “You were
saying something about making our own excitement,” he reminded the
other man. “Have you perhaps devised where there might be some
nests or something of the sort?”
“Nah
man,” Gunn protested immediately. “There are other types of
entertainment, English.” Wes stared at him blankly for a moment and
then blinked a few times. The implication slowly became clear that
Gunn was talking about after hours entertainment of some sort. The
kind of night life that had nothing to do with work.
“Well
yes,” he agreed. “But when have we the time? Or the inclination,
not to mention the money?”
“Right
now, whenever we want and I'm sure we could figure out where to
scrape some cash up,” Gunn ticked off immediately. And then
shrugged. “And if we ain't gonna go out, we'll figure something'
out. Hate to see a man laid low, bein' a fifth wheel an all.”
“A
fifth wheel?” Wes demanded, slightly offended. More often than not,
it had been Cordelia the hanger on when he and Virgina had planned
anything. Because Gunn had been smart enough not to bring romantic
assignations to his work place. And Cordelia didn't hang on to his
and Virginia's time together so much as had vituperative alliterative
fits about not getting her moment in the spotlight. She lived
vicariously through the facts and illusions together that her mind
came up with. That was about the extent of it.
“I'm
jus' sayin',” Gunn chuckled, holding his hands up peaceably as Wes
considered throwing the book at him now.
“What
precisely?” Wes demanded in clipped tones.
“Man,
do I really gotta spell it out for you English?” Gunn's tone was
teasing, but there was a slight undercurrent to it, that told Wes
that the male across from him was affronted and out to prove
something. “I ain't sayin' the odds as desperate as Cordy thinks.
But it still ain't likely you gonna find some super hot piece of
soemthin' somethin' like you fell into with Virginia.”
“And
you're so certain about that?” Wes defended hotly. He knew that it
was just frustration over most everything else that was prompting him
to act so immaturely, but still, it was a diversion from all their
other problems.
“Willing
to put money down on it,” Gunn nodded. And at that moment, he had
whipped his wallet from his pocket and thumbed out fifty dollars cash
to throw down between them.
“Gunn,
this is not the sort of thing that a gentleman bets on,” he began
as Gunn grinned cunningly.
“Or
a chicken,” he taunted quickly, though ineffectively.
“Perhaps
in your neighborhood you'll find such goings on,” Wes scoffed back,
“but in the civilized world-!”
“Oh!
You did not just bring ma crew into this!” Gunn huffed, shifting a
step back.
“Bring
it into what?” Cordelia demanded as she descended the stair case,
looking for all the world that it was perfectly natural, perhaps even
expected for Wes and Gunn to be ready to come to blows. As it didn't
involve her, it probably was, in her mind.
“Nothing,”
Wesley was about to inform her, but realized that her eyes had caught
sight of the money on the counter.
“We
just got ourselves a little bet goin' on, if English here can man
up,” Gunn spoke pointedly, directing his words to Wes' face.
“What's
the action?” Cordy wanted to know as she hopped off the last step,
into the lobby. Wes opened his mouth to protest once more. But Gunn
beat him to it.
“Fifty
says Wes can't find another hot girl to date him,” Gunn announced
with a certain amount of relish.
“Better
pay up now,” Cordy retorted, glancing at Wes, with a tone somewhere
between a snort and a scoff. “World'll end before that happens.”
“See
here now-!” Wes began, turning to castigate Cordy as she moved to
her desk behind the counter, but then suddenly, he was furious.
Furiously digging his hands through his pockets, where he managed to
find fifty dollars, though most of it was small bills. He slammed it
down on top of Gunn's, who looked entirely too pleased. They were
both surprised though, when Cordy's hand joined the pile and before
either could protest, and when she pulled her hand away, for them to
see, even more money had been added to the meager looking bills. They
both turned to her, mouths agape.
“What?”
she demanded. “I need the money. And I know
I have no problems getting a hot date.” She blew out an annoyed
breath and turned to duck and retrieve one of their bank deposit bags
that saw very little recent use. She gathered up the money, deftly
counting it out to its one hundred and fifty dollar total before
stuffing it in the bag, zipping it up and putting it away in the
safe. She spun the dial, then rose and turned back to the others.
“Okay, so what are the terms?” she
demanded in her too perky voice with a wide grin, looking entirely
too amused for Gunn and Wes' liking.
Chapter Two
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