[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Five 5/20 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Five 5/20

Author: Helen Raven

Email: helenraven at talk21.com

Pairing: Wesley/Gunn

Summary: The full history of the relationship between
Gunn and Wesley in the Birthdayverse. A novel in six
parts.

Rating: NC-17

Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit, not even a blip
on the litigation radar.

The Story's Home Page: http://www.kelper.co.uk/kungai

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Gunn found nothing, and not many people who'd care,
either. He soon stopped mentioning the murders, asked
mostly about Hank and the van, and about things from
the spell. He would probably have checked with the
crew anyway, but having to drop out of the movie trip
moved them a few places up his list; they assumed he
was working on one of Angel's tip-offs and wanted to
be in on the fight, but Gunn said it had to be small
this time, really low-key.

Wesley did better with his bookstores, discovering
that Barney was a regular in L.A., seemed to come
about once a year, which meant he might come back.
He'd bought one book this time, on Tuesday last week:
a 1983 Radnor, for $45 cash. It was a solid general
reference, Wesley had twenty like it. Barney had known
what he was looking for, had seemed pleased to find
it, but didn't want to go on the mailing list, didn't
want help or suggestions. No one could remember
exactly what he'd bought in other years, but they
agreed that he acted like a professional, on a routine
check for something new or improved to make his life
easier. The stores said they'd look through their
sales records, get back to Wesley if they remembered
what Barney had bought. They hadn't heard anything
about Kekulei demons or about the spell.

Wesley got the idea of talking to their competitors in
the demon-expert business, and he and Gunn met back at
the apartment to look up names and numbers. And what
about some of the weirdos that they'd met through
cases and visions? Like those demon-worshipping twins.
Anyone who saw demons as an "opportunity", they should
put on their list.

They finished making the calls around eight. They'd
talked to about half of the names on their list (got
nothing), and for the others Gunn would keep trying
the no-answers, and they'd follow up the messages in
the morning. It was late enough now for Wesley to
start making his visits to the magic-users, but Gunn
had ordered Chinese and he made Wesley wait until it
arrived and then got him to eat - not much but
something. They hadn't talked yet about what had
happened, or not about their part in it. Maybe if they
found enough new calls to make, new people to see,
they still wouldn't have talked a week from now.

Gunn spent the evening searching online, harder and
stranger than he'd ever searched before. Angel was
unsettled, probably just from the tone of their
voices, because how would he make sense of the words?
"Church", "family", "van", "hotel". They only made
sense in the world beyond the window, which didn't
exist for Angel. He'd have nightmares later, Gunn was
sure, with a strong chance he'd wake up as Angelus.

Wesley called in near midnight, when he got done with
the first magic-user (the same guy who'd helped them
with the zombie cops). He'd found nothing directly
about Barney or the Kekulei demons, but maybe
something about the Kungai: a rumour from a year or
more back, about someone killed by a stab from a
Kungai's Tak horn, with the body just collapsed like
nothing but a Tak horn could do, and with no Kungai
within a thousand miles. When Wesley had been tracking
the Kungai, he'd been following a trail of mutilations
across three states. Now it was looking like that was
all Barney's work, starting with the Kungai. Wesley
had made a list of the mutilations, with places and
dates, and he read it out and Gunn copied it all down.

Wesley had three more magic-users to visit, and he
didn't know when he would be home. He wouldn't call in
again, or not unless he needed Gunn's help. Gunn
called Swift exactly at midnight and told her about
the bookstores and the (possible) trail of
mutilations, and she said that she had put together a
similar picture, also by following the clue of the
Kungai. The empath didn't normally hunt in L.A., they
were fairly sure. So when he came to L.A. it was for
another reason. If they could work out the reason,
that might be one way to find him. Another would be to
look outside L.A. for the signs of his hunting, try to
follow his path backwards. They'd already started to
send the word out, but Wesley's list would help.

Swift wasn't exactly friendly (and who would be, when
running a murder investigation?), but she wasn't angry
either; she treated Gunn like a person, with
information and opinions going both ways. They
arranged that Gunn would call in at six the next
evening, and Swift was about to hang up when Gunn said
quickly, "C'n I ask you something? How many people
know now what Wesley did? Where we live. What're we
lookin' at in terms of payback?"

A brief pause, then: "What he did... We'll tell anyone
who asks. Or needs to know. And then tell them that he
came to us as soon as he knew. We could have made the
same mistake with the review board, if the empath ever
really was planning on making that application. No
one's thinking of payback."

"What about the Kekulei demons? They gotta want
someone."

"They want the people who did it."

"Yeah, but if you don't find 'em...? Wesley'd be next,
right?"

A sigh that sounded like agreement. "We'll try to get
them... I'll warn you. If the mood starts to change,
I'll call you and I'll warn you that you should get
out of town. And I'll tell you when it's safe to come
back."

Wesley didn't come home that night, and he didn't call
in. He'd made it very clear to Gunn the last time that
magic-users were precious little pricks who'd take any
excuse to get offended - like a visitor taking a phone
call from a boyfriend who was still worried about
Kekulei demons and payback. Yeah, Swift had meant what
she said, she would warn Gunn, but Gunn knew it would
only take one Kekulei going after Wesley, just one who
hadn't read the memo, hadn't got with Swift's program.

But Wesley would have told the magic-user that this
was about murder. Cold-blooded, planned, probably for
money. You let up on your dignity when life got real,
didn't you? So if Wesley's boyfriend got worried
enough to have to call... Just one call, with maybe
ten words. You'd understand, wouldn't you? You
wouldn't get so offended you'd tell Wesley to leave.
But they might be in the middle of a spell. Five
seconds from getting a fix on Barney. Needing total
concentration. And maybe no second chance.

Gunn held out until nearly four, and then he decided
that it couldn't, it just couldn't, take four hours to
ask three magic-users a few simple questions about Tak
horns and emotions in bottles. Something else had
happened to Wesley, and Gunn had to know where he was.

Wesley's phone was switched off. Which had to mean a
spell, right? And those could take hours. So... OK.
Probably he was OK. Nothing Gunn could do, except try
again in an hour. Should get some sleep: might be his
last chance in days. Angel was quiet now, or quiet
enough to sleep through. Angelus had been and gone,
and he'd been easy to ignore this time; no different,
but suddenly irrelevant.

Gunn left the lights on and the door to the bedroom
half-open, and lay down on the bed with just his shoes
kicked-off. He closed his eyes and he saw the demons
surging down the stairs towards Wesley. And he tried
to think "stupid", and "brave", and "honourable" and
he tried not to think "suicidal".

He'd call Grouw at midday - Oh, God, training in the
evening. They'd have to cancel, too dangerous with
them both so strung out. Could Grouw get a message to
his sister in time? Or Gunn could just meet the duals
at the portal and drive them straight to a bar.

But Grouw and Piriti? He'd tell them tomorrow before
they heard it somewhere else. Tell them what Swift had
said about payback: that Wesley would be OK. A
mistake. A mistake that anyone could have made.

* * * * *

When he woke it was past nine and Wesley still wasn't
back. Angel was awake and deep in hell - first time in
months, so those were some vibes he'd picked up - and
he didn't know Gunn at all, trembled all the time he
was drinking, the beaker knocking against his teeth.

Gunn made coffee for two, and his search for breakfast
found only the fortune cookies from last night. He
threw the papers away without reading them, not in any
mood to play the game of looking for good news,
matching up silly hints with silly hopes. There was
nothing to hope for here. Not really. Yeah, they might
find Barney, put a stop to his hunting, but this
wasn't a mistake that could be put right. Whatever the
fortunes might have to say, they were too late by
nearly a week.

And never mind the fortune cookies, what about a
vision? What sort of "Powers" would know about the
Kungai and miss out on Barney? Just one drawing of
Barney with a knife. Or not even a drawing: Angelus
saying "The empath demon. He's killing them! He's
cutting their throats." Any time before Sunday
evening, and that would have been enough.

But the Powers didn't save demons. And look at Angel,
at what serving them had done to Angel. They didn't
care. They saved Wesley and so he was theirs, and that
was all they'd ever thought about him.

Gunn called Grouw, arranged to meet him during his
lunch-break, and got the number of Piriti's pager.
Grouw should be able to send a message to his sister
over lunch, but he couldn't guarantee that she'd get
it in time to pass it on.

Wesley called at ten, on his way to a meeting with
Lilah Morgan. He'd shown the list of mutilations to
the other magic-users and got more rumours, all
pointing to the idea of some rich customer, maybe rich
enough to leave no trace of himself in the real world.
Would Lilah give up a client? One way to find out.

"So you were talkin' rumours all night? These guys
know when you usually sleep?"

"Ellison gave me - I don't know. There was... time."

Jeez, he sounded like Angel. "Wes. I think you're too
tired to be driving." Or too stoned. "Where are you?"

"No. No, I don't need to sleep. I'm not tired. I've
got a meeting."

"Well. Be careful. You know you can leave the car at
the library. Get a cab home. You're comin' home after,
right?"

Wesley didn't know. Lilah might give him some new
leads. They couldn't wait. They couldn't give Barney
more time.

"Wes. You have to allow some room. Remember the
dumpster?" No reply, and Gunn sighed to himself and
closed his eyes for a few seconds. Then he shrugged
and: "I've cancelled the training for this evening.
Asked Grouw to get a message to the duals."

"Oh. Yes. Yes, they wouldn't - Of course." Slurred,
vague, like he was only half-there. He shouldn't be
driving. He definitely shouldn't be talking. Gunn got
off the line in just a few words, then went straight
down to the truck and drove to the library. He'd
planned on staking out the corridor outside the study
carrels, but he got lucky and found Wesley's car while
he was looking for somewhere to park; and he sat in
the driver's seat and used the time to follow up the
no-answers and left-messages from the day before.

Piriti returned Gunn's page at around eleven, and Gunn
arranged to pick him up at a quarter of one, and
they'd meet Grouw near his work, and Gunn would tell
them both some bad news. No, not about Matt. No, no,
he wouldn't be able to help them with the tours now,
but that wasn't it. No, he couldn't say now, but it
was bad.

Wesley didn't see Gunn waiting in the car. Looked like
it was taking Wesley all of his concentration just to
deal with his keys. When Gunn opened the door, Wesley
cried out - in fear, open fear - and jumped back,
slamming into the next car and dropping his keys.

"Charles! Charles. You were at home. What are you
doing?"

Gunn was picking up the keys and using them to lock
the car. "I'm taking you home. If you'd heard yourself
on the phone... You're not fit to drive." He put his
hand on Wesley's arm and started leading him towards
the truck. Wesley resisted, not fighting Gunn exactly,
but acting desperate to get back to the car.

"No. I have to - I can't -"

Gunn got very firm, controlled him with an arm around
his waist that kept Wesley's arm clamped between their
bodies. "You need to see a mirror. You're going home.
Christ, didn't Lilah offer to call you a cab? Didn't
she say anything?"

"She said... she doesn't know." Wesley was hardly
struggling at all now. Given up, or distracted.

"Hadn't even heard the rumours?" Wesley shook his
head. "So you rest now, Wes. Need you thinking
straight. That's what's important now: get you ready
to work out our next lead."

Wesley let Gunn lead him into the bedroom, let Gunn
undress him and take his glasses off, and ease him
under the covers. He was shutting down, withdrawing
somewhere; he'd be asleep in minutes.

"Have you eaten? I mean real food." A shake of the
head, eyes half-closed. "I'll get you... Will you
drink a glass of milk?" A pause, then a grunt that
wasn't a no. Gunn thought Wesley would probably be
asleep when he got back from the kitchen, but he'd
stayed awake and he pushed himself up to sitting when
Gunn told him to - very slowly, all very slowly - and
he took the glass and he drank.

Three mouthfuls, with his eyes drifting shut again,
then suddenly: "Angel!" Urgent, panicked, thrusting
the glass at Gunn and scrabbling to get out of bed.

Gunn pushed him back with a hand on his shoulder.
"Angel's fine. I fed him this morning, same as usual.
There's nothing to worry about. Here. You just need to
finish this." He put the glass in Wesley's hand.

"What did you tell him?" Apprehensive. Making no move
to drink.

"He was in hell, Wes. I told him to drink."

"That's -" A ragged sigh. "He never questioned about
the Kungai. What had happened. He just accepted what I
told him."

At the beginning. Wesley was back at the beginning.
"What he'd seen. Same as you did."

"But he knew I couldn't be - He'd seen what I - He
felt sorry for me. He shouldn't have felt sorry for
me. He should have made me..."

"Wes. Don't do this. You think he'd blame you if he
knew? Barney... Barney's been doin' this for a long
time. He gets away with it because... he knows that
normal people can't imagine what he does. How he
thinks. Must've got away with it with hundreds of
people. Until now. Until you. When you put your life
on the line to stop him. That's what Angel would see.
If he knew."

But Wesley was just shaking his head. He pushed the
glass towards Gunn's hand. "I don't want this."

Gunn put the glass on the nightstand then took
Wesley's hand. "Will you sleep? You look - You'd scare
Angelus." No, Angelus would just want to fuck him.
Drink him and fuck him. But he'd scare Angel and he
scared Gunn.

The stubble. How did it make him look so tough and so
breakable, both at the same time? Gunn had never
worked it out, not in a year, it still grabbed him,
the same as that first morning. And now... There was
something in Wesley's eyes that reminded Gunn of
Angel, how Angel always looked when he woke in the gag
and chains. The despair, the pleading. Trapped, with
no possible place to run. But Angel would be frantic
with fear while Wesley... Wesley was somewhere even
worse, held in pure pain.

"I -" Wesley swallowed. "What will you do?"

"I'm still makin' the calls. When that's done I'll try
the streets again. See how it looks now we know more."

Wesley was nodding. "Swift. What have they found?
Would she tell you?"

Gunn gave Wesley most of his conversation with Swift,
not including his question at the end about payback.
Wesley was calming down, forgetting Angel, and after a
certain point his exhaustion seemed to fall on him:
his eyes started to flutter closed, and by the end of
Gunn's next sentence he was asleep, still sitting up
from when he'd been drinking. Gunn half-lifted him,
got him lying flat, then bent over him and kissed him,
then, against his cheek, in a whisper: "We'll get
through this. You'll see. No one'll blame you, no one
who knows."

Grouw was waiting outside the garage, and he'd already
sent the message to his sister. Gunn drove to a quiet
street, parked, and then turned in his seat and went
straight in and told them, starting with the meal and
Barney asking about the survey. They were puzzled,
listening with a "yeah, so?" look, and then Gunn got
to the call from Swift. Piriti started to gag when
Gunn was describing the spell, and Grouw got the door
open in time and hauled him out so he threw up into
the street. Gunn got water and a cloth, expecting that
Piriti would need minutes to recover, but he just
rinsed his mouth out once, looked up at Gunn, and
said, "Why? For... Power?"

"For money. Or that's how it looks." Gunn told them
about the bookstores and the Tak horn and the trail of
mutilations, and then Grouw asked how Gunn had told
Swift all this without telling her everything about
Wesley, and Gunn was back to Thursday morning. He told
the rest right through, and with just the fact and
none of the feelings, it was much quicker than he'd
thought - because they'd found almost nothing.

Piriti said he'd call Swift, tell her about the tour.
He borrowed Gunn's phone, and Swift told him to come
to her office immediately, so Gunn started the truck.

"You told her like it was just you. We should both
go."

Piriti shook his head. "You have work. I'll give her
your number if she asks for it. You know I talked to
him more."

Piriti said he'd get a cab home, no need for Gunn to
come back for him. Swift's address was about five
miles from where Grouw worked. Silence for the first
mile, then Grouw said, "Why'd he do it? Wesley. Give
the empath all that. I know he bent the rules for us,
when we were starting the tours, but...  When they
were his rules?"

Gunn sighed. "I don't know. He's - I can't ask him
yet. But... When you've saved someone. Lost as much as
he did to do it. You - I guess he had this picture in
his mind of who he'd saved. How the guy'd been worth
it. Maybe Barney picked up on that. Played to it. He
sure played it right. Wes told me what he was doing.
When he got home and went to the computer. He told me
all about the meal. And I never said, 'Woah! This
guy's workin' a con. He's set you up for this.'
Because I didn't think it. He sounded... like a
regular guy."

Grouw nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah. That's how he acted.
With us. Is it -" He swallowed. "What's worse? If he's
a monster who knows how to fake it? When he needs to
fool people. Or if he is a regular guy? Who can still
do these things and...  shrug them off like it doesn't
matter."

"Oh, man. It's all bad."

Silence again, until they got to the garage. Grouw was
about to open the door, then paused and turned to look
at Gunn. "How's Wesley? How's he dealing?"

Gunn just shook his head, over and over.

"I'm sorry."

Gunn set his jaw, gave a fraction of a shrug.
"Mistake. s'a mistake."

Grouw nodded, then left without looking back.

* * * * *


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