[Gunnwesley] FIC: Leaving 2/2

[Katarina Hjärpe]

For headers, see part 1.

**********

Alonna was a fast-moving girl. She had to be, or she'd be dead. When the 
phone rang, she jumped out of the cot she'd made for herself on the tin roof 
and pulled on her jacket. It was an hour or so before dawn, a time when she 
was usually turning in, but Buffy hadn't wanted to go back to the 
headquarters after their stakeout, and so they settled for a semi-stakeout 
from a nearby rooftop. Her body was aching from the uncomfortable position 
she'd been sleeping in, but she was used to discomfort and didn't let it 
slow her down. But by the time she reached the fire escape, the Slayer was 
already waiting to go, putting the cell phone back in her pocket.

Alonna stared at her. "Haven't you been sleeping at all?"

"Sure I have," Buffy said, heading down the fire escape. "You're just a 
little bit more Rip van Winkle than I am."

Alonna hardly saw herself as very like Rip van Winkle, but she didn't bother 
to argue. "So what did they say?"

"Just that it's starting and that they'll call back when they've taken over 
the Watchers' truck."

Or when they'd failed to. No reason to bring that up, though. They both knew 
it was a possibility. Alonna hurried her steps, trying to follow Buffy's as 
they both ran from the stakeout towards the hospital.

Eventually, they slowed their steps nearly to normal pace so they wouldn't 
attract too much attention. Alonna's eyes darted from exit to exit, although 
she wasn't quite sure what she was looking for. She'd only seen those 
English kidnappers once, and she wasn't sure she'd recognize them. Certainly 
she wouldn't if they were dressed in white coats or something.

But it turned out to be quite a lot easier than she thought, because the 
first familiar figure she saw stepping out of the hospital was Wesley. She 
stopped short and grabbed Buffy's arm. The men that walked outside with 
Wesley weren't wearing white coats and she did recognize them rather, but 
her attention was on the wheelchair being pushed by one of them and the 
sickly-looking girl sitting there in a hospital gown. She looked much too 
weak to kill anyone, and Alonna wondered if she was doped up already.

"Now, how did *he* get here this fast?" Buffy muttered.

"He's taking shifts," Alonna said. She had thought Buffy knew that. "Just 
like your Giles guy."

"I'd rather have Giles," Buffy muttered. "He can hold his own."

Alonna frowned, but didn't have time to think of an answer before Buffy 
spoke again:

"Where *is* that truck?" She brought the cell phone out of her pocket and 
started searching for a phone number. "They were supposed to call when 
they'd taken it."

"Don't," Alonna said. "They might be in the middle of a fight or something."

Buffy paused for a second, letting her glance touch the Brits, who had yet 
to discover them. Then she smiled. "I'm thinking not, or the truck would 
still be in place."

She had a point. The main reason they hadn't been discovered yet was that 
the Brits were searching all over for something that had to be their truck. 
Wesley was the only one to pay any attention to people around him, and 
Alonna caught a glance.

He was on the other side of a vast parking lot and didn't show too much of a 
reaction either - good thing too, or the others might have wondered what was 
up - but she could see that he had discovered them. She made a very visible 
shrug to show that they didn't have any directions yet. It clearly didn't 
please him, but he turned away, talking to one of the other men.

Meanwhile, Buffy had gotten someone on the phone. "Where are you and what 
happened to calling us?" She sighed deeply and a frown formed on her face. 
"If it isn't one thing it's another. Okay, they're out here now, we'll be 
over in a few."

She put the phone down and rolled her eyes. "Their battery's out."

"Well, that's hardly their fault," Alonna said, grateful it wasn't something 
worse. Although she knew it was superstitious of her, she hoped that a small 
mishap meant nothing big was going to go wrong.

"Checking in advance is usually a good idea."

Maybe Buffy hadn't intended to sound snippy, but Alonna took offence at her 
tone of voice anyway. "It's not like we normally use cellphones on our 
patrols. And believe it or not, we get the job done."

Buffy, clearly not listening, gave a little wave to Wesley, who was looking 
in their direction again although the other two weren't. She held up three 
fingers and jerked her head to the right, and Wesley nodded, moving along 
with the others in a manner that didn't make it too clear that he was 
leading the way. His pals were starting to look edgy, but not very 
suspicious – yet.

"Three blocks, huh?" Alonna said, starting to walk. She didn't know how long 
it would take before the Watchers recognized her and Buffy, but she told 
herself sternly that even if her presence would confuse them, they had no 
reason to suspect any danger.

Three blocks down, she spotted a big blue truck. It was turned in the other 
direction, so she couldn't see the driver, but Buffy stopped and Alonna did 
too.

"Shouldn't we step out of their sight or something?"

"Now, where's the fun in that?" Buffy fiddled with something in her pocket, 
and Alonna got a glimpse of a syringe as the other girl hid it up her 
sleeve.

She heard one of the men saying "Buffy Summers?" behind them, and turned 
around, feeling cold inside.

"And you," the same man said, coming closer. "I recognise you."

Alonna nodded, and her gaze fell on the pale girl sitting in the hospital 
wheelchair. She looked sickly and weak, so unlike her previous self that 
Alonna at first wondered if the damn Brits had gotten a double. But the girl 
met her eyes, scowling.

"You tried to kill me."

"Yeah, and I'll do it again if you give me reason," Alonna replied. "But not 
right now."

And with that, she took a few quick steps forward and punched the guy next 
to her in the face. He wavered for a second and she punched him again, but 
this time he was prepared and caught her hand, twisting her arm. She broke 
loose, kicking him in the guts while she waited for the pain in her arm to 
go away.

He was a good fighter, something she hadn't quite expected, but then he had 
very clearly not expected her to be one either. An even fight like this was 
definitely different than fighting a vampire, starting with a burning wish 
to avoid killing – at least on her part.

Buffy was a lot more efficient in taking down her guy, but still 
preoccupied, while Wesley was checking on the girl. Alonna caught a glimpse 
of the syringe in his hand and was pretty surprised, since she hadn't seen 
Buffy give it to him.

A hard punch from the man she was fighting sent her sprawling against the 
wheelchair. Fuck. Getting a bar of steel into her hip *hurt*. But that 
wasn't as problematic as the knife he'd just shaken into his hand. 
*Definitely* not trying to avoid killing her.

"Care to step in?" she hissed to Wesley who, bless him, rose from where he 
was crouching down and swiftly kicked Alonna's opponent so the knife fell to 
the ground.

The man was so shocked he made no move to pick it up, and Alonna quickly 
dived for it instead. It wasn't a foldable or she would have stuck it away 
somewhere, since fighting with a weapon made it harder not to go for the 
kill. Now she had no choice but to hold on to it.

Buffy and the guy she was fighting both turned their heads in surprise. The 
guy was the first one to recover and get a punch in, hitting Buffy straight 
on the nose and efficiently jilting her back to reality.

"Wait for your turn," she said, throwing one back so hard the guy dropped 
like a sack of beans.

Alonna was still trying to get her guy down, with Wesley's help, and they 
managed to get him down on the ground and well stuck there. But he held onto 
consciousness, and juggling the knife and keeping him restrained at once was 
tricky.

Then Buffy joined them, and with a swift blow, it was over.

"Enjoy the trip to La-La Land, Watcher boy," Buffy said, wiping her hands 
off each other.

The door to the truck opened and Jamie stuck out his head. "You need a 
hand?"

"No, it's all right," Alonna called back.

"Wait a minute," Wesley said beside her, rising awkwardly. "I think we do, 
rather. All three of them are unconscious, and we can hardly stack them in 
the wheelchair."

Alonna stared at him. "You... want to take them with us?" That hadn't been 
in the plan, and she didn't like it.

Buffy seemed to agree with her. "Wesley, these two are a little bit too 
dangerous to keep as house pets."

The corners of Wesley's mouth twisted, but his voice was serious as he 
explained, "So dump them along with the truck, but don't leave them here. We 
counted on them making their move at night, which they did. But it's almost 
dawn, and they're not going to wake up for a while yet. People will come 
along..." He gave a lopsided shrug.

"Daytime people," Alonna said, understanding what he was getting at. 
"They'll ask questions. Yeah. You may be right."

"So, do you need a hand?" Jamie asked again, still leaning out of the 
driver's seat.

Alonna sighed. She *really* didn't want to share a truck with these guys, 
unconscious or not. "Sure, come on and load them in."

**********

Gunn sat down on one of Wesley's kitchen chairs, feeling strangely lost. "I 
missed it. The battle, the whole thing... and now she's gone."

"Yes, thank God," Wesley sighed, and Gunn came close to strangling him 
before he figured out that they were talking about different things.

"Not Faith. Alonna."

"Oh." Wesley looked down. "I'm sorry."

"S'okay." It made sense that Wesley would be more relieved to get rid of the 
psycho bitch than worried about Alonna. He hadn't lived with her all his 
life -

And the simple reality of *all his life* struck him so hard that he couldn't 
breathe. Alonna had been there since before he could remember. No one had 
told him to take care of his little sister, but he'd done it anyway. Some 
people might have argued the logic of his way to keep her safe, which was 
bringing her into all the deep vampire lairs for the fight, but she wasn't a 
hooker or demon food, and that was more than you could say about most chicks 
in these parts of town.

And now she was headed off to a foreign country with only a perky white girl 
and a stiff in tweed by her side.

He sighed. "Remember what you said yesterday about distracting me? Now would 
be a good time."

Wesley looked up, and after a moment gave a melancholic smile. "All right." 
He leaned across the table and gave Gunn a quick kiss. "We'll need to get 
Angel out of the bedroom, though."

"Fuck." Gunn hadn't thought of that, and the idea of waking the vampire up 
to say that they needed the bed for fucking was... no. Just no. "Can't we do 
it in the living room?" The sofa was soft enough, if a bit small – he'd had 
sex in a lot more uncomfortable places.

Wesley made a thoughtful grimace. "I don't think I can... but maybe you 
could."

It took a while for Gunn to get the gist of this; his mind went off on the 
wrong track and he thought Wesley opted out of any action for the time 
being. Then he caught up, and was a bit relieved. "You want me to do the 
fucking." It was a question of agility, really, but it also put him in 
somewhat familiar territory.

Wesley's expression was so hard to read that Gunn became uncertain again:

"You don't want me to do the fucking?"

"Yes, I do, rather." But Wesley's brow was still furrowed. "I just... well, 
in all honesty, I've never been shagged by a virgin."

The thought that he might not be up to the task got Gunn defensive. "Who're 
you calling a virgin?"

Wesley smiled a little, though the smile was wry. "Sorry to have offended 
you. There's virginity and virginity."

"Women have asses. What's the difference?"

For a moment, Gunn thought he might get an answer, but then Wesley closed 
his mouth, shrugged, and left the kitchen.

It was supposed to be a distraction, but perhaps neither one of them was 
distracted enough. They brought the needed items into the living room and 
started taking off their clothes, but their actions were subdued and 
matter-of-fact, like they were preparing to wash the dishes rather than get 
laid. Wesley even folded up his jeans, for fuck's sake.

This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Gunn pushed Wesley down on the 
couch and kissed him hard. He'd forgotten about Wesley's splinted finger, 
but luckily his attack was so sudden that Wesley didn't have time to catch 
himself and hurt it more, just to hiss, "Take it easy!" and move his arm 
aside once Gunn was already straddling him.

"Sorry," Gunn said, though he felt anything but repentant. But he did take 
it a little easier as he proceeded to very slowly take off Wesley's shirt, 
caressing the skin around wounds that were now unbandaged but still sported 
the occasional stitches.

And then, sliding Wesley's shirt off his shoulder, he found something odd 
about one of those wounds. "Holy shit."

"It's over," Wesley said, catching Gunn's mouth and kissing him fiercely.

Gunn broke away from the kiss to take another look. "Jesus Christ, it goes 
all around your shoulder!"

"It's *over*," Wesley insisted.

The persistence in his voice gave Gunn the sense to shut up, while still 
watching the cut. It was just a scratch, not deep enough to leave a scar, 
but there was nothing random about it. That bitch had been doing it as a 
game, trying to scare Wesley – and probably suceeding too. He had seen Buffy 
fight and if Faith was anything like her, the threat would have been real, 
and Wesley would have known it.

But she was gone now. It *was* over, and Gunn banished the bitch from his 
thoughts, instead reaching out for the condom packet lying on the table.

This was a small step for mankind, for sure, and it wasn't exactly a huge 
leap for Charles Gunn either. In fact, he was surprised at how natural for 
him it was to lock his legs around Wesley's body and thrust deeply. He had 
done it before, sure, but Wes wasn't anything like a girl, didn't look like 
one or feel like one, and sure as hell didn't smell like one.

Or react like one, either. Gunn listened to his accelerating breaths with 
surprise, although his own were hardly any slower. "You really... like this, 
don't you?"

"Oh, God, yes," Wesley muttered, arching closer.

"Because when I've done this... with women..."

Wesley gave a half-choked laugh and grasped Gunn's ass, something that got 
him to cease breathing altogether. "Women are different," he said, and then, 
"Damn. I can't... I'm still bandaged."

"Never mind, then," Gunn whispered, because what Wesley could and did do was 
more than enough, his hand teasing its way down Gunn's buttock and thigh as 
he arched his back as well as he could in their awkward position on the 
couch.

Gunn gasped, feeling his dick tighten and then go limp.

"Don't stop."

"Can't help it." He pulled out and leaned heavily on his elbows, but he let 
his mouth keep moving over Wesley's neck and chest, and as soon as his arms 
stopped shaking he started using his hands on him as well.

He wished he could have gone again, right away. In part because he simply 
wished it, but in part because he still couldn't forget.

"D'you think they're there yet?" he asked, even though he didn't want to.

"Not for another three hours," Wesley answered, without even moving his hand 
to look at his watch.

It wasn't over. Not for the people crossing the Atlantic, and not even 
properly for them, here at home.

**********

Angel could hear the echo of footsteps coming down the hall, and the breathy 
voice of that girl - what was her name? Mushroom, his mind wanted to tell 
him, but it couldn't be Mushroom. People weren't called Mushroom.

"He's a bit too old for this place, but no one else will take him. And he's 
no danger to anyone else. Just to himself."

The door swung open and girl who wasn't Mushroom was standing in the doorway 
along with a severe man in a suit. The severe man gave Angel a long hard 
stare that made Angel feel guilty and embarrassed, and so he tried to cover 
up the pretty picture he had drawn on the bed sheet. It was a picture of a 
girl's face, he knew, but the blood stains had made it all messy, and he 
couldn't remember who the girl was.

His own face was messy too, and he guiltily wiped away the blood from his 
mouth, casting an eye at the corpse weighing down his bed.

"I was so cold," he said to the severe man, trying to explain. "He was warm. 
I wanted..."

The severe man said nothing, just kept staring. The not-Mushroom girl was 
shaking her head back and forth, but she didn't say anything either.

Angel knew he was in very deep trouble, and he figured there was only one 
thing left to do. He rose from the bed, causing the corpse to fall down onto 
the floor with a thud. It fell face up, and he saw that it was Wesley, eyes 
frozen in confusion and fear.

"I'm still cold," he told the severe man before going into game face.

But the severe man had a game face too, which confused Angel and caused him 
to step back. He knew that face. He hadn't looked into a mirror for two 
hundred years, but he knew it anyway.

"Angelus?"

Angelus grinned, loosening his tie and stepping up for the bite. "How did 
you think this was going to end?"

Angel cowered, backing away until he fell onto the bed. He could see 
Wesley's corpse lying on the floor, its throat torn out, and he knew that 
whatever Angelus would do to him, it would be just punishment.

Something about the corpse was wrong, though, and once he realized what it 
was he forgot to be afraid.

Two arms. The corpse had two arms, and he knew it shouldn't have.

"You're not real," he told it.

A voice rang out from across the room. "Angel, man, you have to stop doing 
this."

He looked up. No sign of Angelus or the not-Mushroom girl, just Doyle 
sitting in the chair by the window.

"You're not real either."

The room was different too, now. This was Wesley's bedroom, and he could 
hear Wesley rummaging about in the kitchen.

"You have to stop doing this," Doyle repeated. "It's about to get worse. 
*Much* worse."

"Worse than this?" Angel didn't know what could be worse than this, but he 
knew the threat wasn't empty. "You keep telling me to stop, but I don't know 
how."

"Get out and stay out. It'll get easier with time. I think."

"You *think*?"

Doyle ran a hand through his hair and gave a joyless, lopsided smile. "I 
don't have all the answers. I'm just a figment of your imagination, 
remember? Well, that and a few stray visions. But trust me on this one – if 
you *don't* stop it's gonna get bad."

"So how do I..."

"Ask Wesley for help. Now go."

Angel stood up, only to hesitate and sit down again. "But..."

"Jesus, Angel, I'm gonna kick your ass soon. And I love you."

"Don't say that."

"GO!"

And he went.

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