Work Text:
Unable To Stop Things
By Ragna
There were times that Wesley rued the day that Cordelia had kissed him. The second time, he corrected himself, not the first time. The first time, in the Sunnydale High School library, was awkward and awful. He never thought he'd see her again once he went back to England, and so he filed away the memory. At least a beautiful girl had kissed him, he would think to himself, and that was all that mattered.
When he went rogue, there were times he'd drift back, memory wise, and wonder why on Earth she'd kissed him at all. He was stuffy, he had no real connection with her, and at that point Xander was not really needing to be tormented by the fact Cordelia flirted with others; it was obvious that he had moved on. So what were her motivations? Had she really had an interest in him? He'd wondered about that for a long time before finally deciding to just let the memory be and not analyze it to death.
He'd never planned on seeing her again.
But the second time...those damn visions seemed to be the price he'd paid for a better kiss, one that left his lips stung and slightly bruised with the force she was using, one that left him dazed and confused, one that left him wondering what the bloody hell had happened to her between the first kiss and the last kiss.
Things had changed so much, and were still changing. He'd managed to escape the fate of death at the hands of Wolfram & Hart when they'd tried to overload him with visions, and he'd been able to see things that steeled his reserve that he was doing the right thing. He watched as Angel fired Cordelia, Gunn and himself but he didn't sit idly by; he took his visions and Cordelia and Gunn's help and re-created Angel Investigations, even taking back Angel when he came to his senses.
He remembered the trip to the alternate dimension where he was king, and the discovery of Fred, all thanks to one supposedly simple vision of his. He watched as Darla arrived, pregnant with Angel's child. By this time, Wesley was growing immune to the different surprises in his life.
Cordelia's assistance in Connor's kidnapping shattered Angel until it was realized that Holtz had been manipulating things; Angel forgave her, but there was no longer the close bond between them anymore. Rather, during the entire period of wondering what had happened to Connor, Wesley had become Angel's rock, the person who would sit for hours and just listen, the one who would provide an outlet.
It was all courtesy of Cordelia that this all happened.
Now, he was a half-demon who had gone to heaven and returned. His father had completely disowned him, his world was shaken to the core and he felt alone, more alone than he had ever imagined possible. And there was a feeling inside him, one that worried him. He felt as though everything he was doing, everything he had done, was for nothing. The world was ending and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
It was all part of a higher plan, he began to realize as he buried himself in his books and Angel's books, that he receive the visions and not Angel. That Connor was born and that, when he and Cordelia would eventually sleep together, they would create a child who wanted to take over the world, to cleanse it and make everything all right. He saw these things, saw it so clearly and yet there was nothing he could do. Even though Angel was a close friend, there were things he worried about telling him, because Angel was going to become Angelus and it would be too late for some things to be stopped by the time they restored his soul.
And he knew all this because he was working for that higher power, that child who wanted to cleanse the world, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
END