Melpomene (melpomene@graffiti.net)
Wesley leaves LA.
Spoilers for 'Sleep Tight' but fits into canon best after 'Double Or Nothing'.

For Those Not So

Gotham reminded him of home, perhaps not nearly so green or so aged, but the cloying gloom and the dour faces were enough to both relieve and worsen his longing for grey skies and constant drizzle.

The sun would rise in a few hours and he'd just reached city limits, having made his way through Metropolis without even needing to stop for a red light, much to his relief. Metropolis had always made him uncomfortable. Too American. The tea was unusually and perhaps even purposefully appalling. He was simply too alien there.

Only now that he had reached Gotham did he allow himself to feel the weariness his bones had given up trying to tell him of weeks ago. Gotham. The place was the kind of mean that he remembers it to be. Planned by madmen with secret geometries or maybe left to grow, unchecked. This is the kind of sinister he understands, unlike the ruthless and ambitious one that Metropolis thrives on and feels like greed, nor like the silicon and neon one that defines LA and feels like vanity. No, Gotham was saturated with an archaic, ingrained, even resigned pain, more like hunger.

Wesley found himself a motel eventually. The clerk, 'Nima' according to the pin on his sleeve, had been attacking a copy of On the Road with a highlighter, but put it down to patiently indulge him while he delightedly stumbled his way through conversational Iranian.

His room was unsurprising and simple. There was a tired, dark cactus in one corner, a small television in another, and plastic over the linen sheets, no doubt protection from blood, sweat, vomit, come: misery.

Wesley shuffled onto the bed, but typically, sleep was avoiding him. He lay there fidgeting with his new wound instead. It was itching but he restrained himself to scratching at it lightly so as not to lift the scab. He found himself missing his apartment in LA, the old pictures on the wall, the ones only Virginia understood enough to laugh at, the closet he sometimes sat in so he could think properly. He missed... things he couldn't let himself think about, not just yet.

He got out of the bed, but only to choose the fire escape as a more fitting place to wallow. The gradual cold was a welcoming intrusion. He concentrated on his chattering teeth, as he slid into numbness and then something like sleep.

He woke up to a thawing/freezing ache. Morning was just behind the trees.

Nima was gone. In his place there was a woman reading a health magazine. She smiled with no sincerity as Wesley handed her his key and could not hide her irritation when he scrounged for some change.

He gathered his motorcycle from the parking lot but still tired and ever responsible, thought twice about getting onto it. But only for a moment, such things hadn't mattered much to him recently, Wesley put on his helmet and made his way to a place he'd neglected thinking about for years.

Wayne Manor.

The place looked like it could have been the inspiration for the House of Usher. The epitome of haunted, which, of course, was exactly how Bruce liked it. Wesley remembered this as charming, if more than slightly pathological.

He walked the motorcycle up the gravel drive, through a garden that managed to loom even in the broad light of the day. And as he passed through to the back garage, Wesley found an always carefully blank-faced Alfred waiting for him.

'Alfred. It's been much too long, hasn't it.' It wasn't a question, Alfred hadn't changed and Wesley found that he'd missed that kind of reliable constancy.

'I'm surprised you still remember the security code.'

'I'm notorious for keeping scraps of information lying around, especially in here.' He pointed to his head with a wry smile.

'I'm glad you remember. It has indeed been too long.'

'I had to bring it back one day.' He said this without needing to gesture at the motorcycle.

'Between you and me, I don't think he's noticed. He's had too many other toys to fawn over. I'll tell him you're here, he'll be glad to see you.'

'No, no, it's too early, I'm sure he's only just gotten into bed. We can do that later.'

'Then come in and I'll have breakfast ready.'

'Thank you, Alfred. You know, it's high time I caught up with what you and yours were doing. Tell me, is Edmund still finishing up his training?'

They entered the kitchen, Wesley's false enthusiasm making a warm reunion impossible, but Alfred, ever discreet, respectfully did not bring up the scabbing gash at Wesley's throat. Eventually Wesley couldn't abide the dishonesty and they left the subject of Edmund's dissertation on Spanish alchemists.

Silence.

'I can't tell you anything.' He said.

'Of course, Master Wesley.' Alfred hadn't called him that in private since he was 15 and it had the right effect of making Wesley feel truly ashamed of himself.

'Thank you for not asking,' he said lamely, 'I...'

'...you can take care of your own affairs.'

'That I wasn't going to presume, but, inadequacies aside, I do need to.'

In his most professionally reserved tone, Alfred said. 'There's a room ready, the one nearest the library, I suggest you use it, you look exhausted,' but, because Wesley was who he was and this kind of evasive defense was hardly unexpected, Alfred let the cold out of his voice and said, 'You should know by now, you have nothing to prove, Wesley.'

*

In the afternoon, Bruce found Wesley already about to leave.

Bruce stopped him at the door.

And said nothing.

There was no warm hug, or bright eagerness between them. They didn't have that kind of friendship, what they had were sardonic smiles and a familiar but distant affection. They knew too much about each other.

They walked a way to the gate before Bruce said, 'How was the bike?'

' "She's a dream," isn't that what they say? At any rate, it comes back to you cared for but well used.'

'I gave it to you, Wesley, keep it.'

'That's very kind of you, Bruce, but I never intended to.'

'Then don't leave so soon. I think Dick will be disappointed he missed you.'

'Don't worry, I'll come and see him when he's home this summer. In any case, I'll be in Gotham indefinitely.'

'Oh?'

'I've been offered a position at the Asylum.'

Bruce quirks an eyebrow in surprise before Wesley eagerly elaborates.

'Arkham has recently put together a research team, and they've asked me to be part of it. We're to work on ways to provide pharmaceutical relief for some of their more unique patients. From what I've been told nothing works, conventional medications are either just completely defeated by the anomalous body chemistry, or create disturbingly strange reactions. It's all really quite fascinating.'

Bruce absorbs the familiar ramble with a grin, 'You've branched out since I last saw you.'

'Yes, I suppose I have, over the years.'

There was a long silence in which Wesley contemplated what he'd had to learn and what he'd never managed to.

Bruce's eyes were sharp and his tone was no longer light when he intruded on Wesley's gloom. 'Stay. Alfred's worried about you.'

'I know, it's why I can't stay.'

'Then don't brood for too long, otherwise you'll end up like me.' Bruce smiled, but despite the attempt at levity the warning was not insincere.

This was as close as this conversation was going to get to being direct. Bruce was reliable in that way. They said nothing more as they made the rest of the way to the gate. There, Wesley gave Bruce a strained smile in farewell before walking away.

End.

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