Title: The Luster Dies
Rating: PG
Word Count: 926
Warnings: Spoilers for Angel: After the Fall, takes place in Issue #4
Summary: For 30_wounds Prompt #4: Take it like a man.

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He vaguely remembered being brought back to Wolfram & Hart. The details were fuzzy - Wesley was there at least visually, and it was possible he was carried back by the dragon - but his pain-induced dreams were more like nightmares. Los Angeles is pulled into Hell, of course it would be nightmares. Any other time, Angel wouldn't have been mourning what was lost. There was still way too much fighting to be done for him to be able to appreciate the warmth, the life, coursing through his body, fueled by the metronome of his beating heart.

Angel could certainly appreciate the irony. Hoards of demons that needed to be put down, and he was playing Humpty Dumpty with Wesley and Wolfram & Hart's dwindling supply of magics. He was out of commission for months as the people of LA were enslaved and killed by demons, but there was nothing Angel could do about it until his broken legs and back were healed and a glamour was perfected. The last thing he needed was every petty demon - and even the not-so-petty ones - to come barging into the office to try and kill him. They barged in, anyway, but at least currently they were still afraid.

This wasn't Shanshu - it was a far cry from it. This was Wolfram & Hart mocking, showing that there was nothing Angel could do, that they were still in control.

At least he wasn't in this alone.

Wesley helped the best he could without being able to touch anything. Ghosts tended not to be particularly helpful in battle. Whatever Wolfram & Hart's motives were for keeping him around, Angel was glad to at least have someone to count on. Especially with Spike off doing what Angel himself should be doing - Spike with his scantily clad groupies and some familiar faces. Angel didn't mind that Connor was with Spike, protecting and helping the people. He didn't need his son to see him like this. He needed everyone to believe the glamour. The only one who seemed to have noticed anything so far was Illyria, but no one paid any attention to her ranting. Even if he were still a vampire, she would have said how Angel was too weak and unworthy to fight her. Angel had to focus on not betraying any mortal fear as she drove the knives into his hands, stabbing him in the abdomen before holding a blade to his throat when Spike interfered.

"You're going to have to take it easier if you hope to live long enough to see the end of this," Wes said from the corner of the room, watching and feeling useless as Angel thumbed through ancient books looking for magical remedies that would work with the few supplies that remained as he clutched the wound at his side with his left hand, trying to staunch the blood flow.

"Before or after I take on the champions of the demon lords?"

"Preferably before."

Angel kept his gaze on the book. They all knew what they were getting into from the start, but looking at Wesley still caused waves of guilt. Not only did he feel like he had failed Wes, but the sight of his currently spectral, formerly mortal friend reminded him of Fred, Cordelia, Doyle, and the thousands of nameless who were lost because of Angelus. "What would you have me do?"

"Sit this one out. Let someone else fight." Wes moved in a way that would've previously resulted in him sitting on the corner of the desk instead of through it. "There will be other battles - the focus should be on perfecting the glamour, maybe finding a permanent protection spell. Spike always loved a good brawl, I'm sure this would be a fun opportunity for him."

While Wesley had a point, there was no way Angel was going to ask Spike to fight this battle for him. None of them were. Letting others help in his fights never turned out to end well, even if it is only Spike. "And what would Wolfram & Hart have me do?"

"I imagine they want you to suffer and die - their expectations for you never really wavered, but the Senior Partners haven't been keeping me privy to their plans. I just know they want me keeping an eye on you."

"Nice of them to send me an incorporeal probation officer that wouldn't be able to stop me even if he wanted to." Angel restrained his sigh of relief when the next page revealed a spell that would be useful to him. He was feeling weak with blood loss, and that wasn't something he could easily fix anymore, either. "So we need tentacles from a V'lothra demon, and it's one of those repeat-after-me spells. They are are always so much fun."

Wesley disappeared wordlessly into the walls, off searching for wherever in the building the V'lothra tentacles might be hiding before forcing Angel to get up to retrieve it. Angel leans back in the chair, forcing on breathing, reveling in the fact that he was breathing, and cursing Wolfram & Hart for their cruel sense of timing.

Once he fixed things, played the hero, saved the day, then things would go back to normal - he'd go back to being a vampire. And Angel would try to forget how Wolfram & Hart made him human when plunging Los Angeles into hell, rubbing in Angel's face the fact that he'd signed away Shanshu and would never get to be human again.