[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Five 16/20 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Five 16/20

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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Wesley had a few mouthfuls of each of the salads, but
it looked like really hard work. Gunn would try one of
those drinks on him in a couple of hours. When Gunn
had finished they put the food away, then Gunn put the
kettle on to make tea and said, "D'you think I'd be
able to feed him now? How's he sound to you?"

He'd managed to surprise Wesley again. Wesley stared
at him for a couple of seconds, then gave one of his
half-smiles and turned to fetch a beaker down from the
shelf. Wesley stayed in the kitchen while Gunn was
heating the blood, but as soon as Gunn took the beaker
out of the microwave he headed straight for the
bedroom.

"You don't have to do that."

A frown and a shrug, then a nod - looked like "sure I
do".

"I was... I hadta make a point. Got a new one now: I
trust you. Y're not gonna take advantage."

No, Wesley wouldn't even think of doing that, but he
still preferred to wait in the bedroom.

Angel knew there was something horribly wrong with the
blood, that he'd be in agony for days if he drank it,
but he was so hungry he either didn't care or he
couldn't stop himself. He vamped up almost
immediately, but he didn't start reaching out for the
beaker until Gunn had put it on top of one of the
books and was pushing it within range. After he'd
drained it, he wiped the inside with his finger and
licked them, and then he tore the beaker apart to get
at the last traces down at the bottom. When there was
no more he dropped the broken plastic onto the
mattress and immediately focussed all of his hunger
towards Gunn's neck. Gunn didn't think he even knew he
was threatening a guard; he didn't really see Gunn at
all, he just smelled the blood.

"There'll be more tomorrow, Angel." Probably more
today, depending on Angel's state, but "tomorrow" was
always safest with Angel. Gunn didn't try to retrieve
the beaker, but he did take the drawing-pad with the
message. No more threats. He still didn't want them to
talk, he didn't want Wesley to see Angel, but there
had to be another way.

Gunn went to the kitchen to finish making the tea.
He'd just torn the message out of the pad and put it
in the trash when the bedroom door opened. Wesley came
straight over and held Gunn tight, rubbing his face
against Gunn's and pressing his lips to Gunn's cheek.
It felt like "Thank you". Gunn wanted to say that he
was sorry but that was complicated - much too far from
yes/no territory.

"I'll feed him again in a couple of hours. Give him a
chance to calm down." Angel was making noises like
Angelus stuck in a vision; feeling the richness of the
world outside, the blood calling to him. Wesley
murmured an agreement and kissed Gunn's cheek again,
but soon he pulled back and took over making the tea.

They sat together on the couch, with Gunn's arm around
Wesley's waist. Felt like a date - at three in the
afternoon.

"We could get a movie tonight."

A no, with a very slight flinch behind it.

"What if I found something really boring or stupid
that you wouldn't enjoy at all?"

Wesley burst out laughing, had to put his mug down,
but it was still a no.

Slowly: "So it's not because you can't let yourself
enjoy a movie? It's not that anymore?"

Not really. Wesley shrugged and frowned, like he was
trying to decide on something, then he turned till he
was half-kneeling on the couch, reached out and
touched his fingers gently to Gunn's throat, then
shook his head, face tense.

Gunn had no idea what Wesley was trying to tell him.
He covered Wesley's hand with his own, to keep it
there, and laid his other hand on Wesley's forehead,
to smooth away the tension. They stared at one another
and Gunn finally said, "You don't want me to talk?"

No, no, that wasn't it. Wesley jerked his head in the
direction of the television, then closed his eyes and
shuddered.

Gunn needed a few more seconds of staring, then:
"People talking in movies? You can't -" Wesley was
nodding, over and over, and sighing like he was
exhausted. "That's bad, Wes. That's really bad."
Wesley knew it. "I... I thought you were just sulking,
because I was making you prove..." No. "But this is
because of what I...?" A shrug. Not important, or
Wesley didn't know.

"But it doesn't bother you when I'm talking?"

Wesley didn't shake his head but instead took his hand
away from Gunn's throat and knelt up, tilting his head
sideways to press his lips over Gunn's larynx; and
Gunn gasped and sighed, and thought, "It's worth it.
This is why I can't leave him. It's not for him. It's
for me."

They kissed, and Gunn's cock was wanting him to pull
Wesley down full-length onto the couch, to get his
hands inside Wesley's pants; but Wesley wasn't ready
for that, he just wanted a long, sweet kiss.

"You're still really tired, aren't you? You wanna go
and lie down again?" Yes, and so they went back to the
bedroom.

At first Gunn was thinking only about Wesley, but then
he remembered the car still at the library; and he
should call Rondell to drop out of training that
evening; and how was he gonna test this squad, if
Lilah could do what she said?; and where the hell
could he take Wesley where there wouldn't be people
talking?

Maybe he got restless, enough for Wesley to tell. Gunn
would have said that Wesley had sunk back somewhere,
that he wasn't really thinking anything, but then
Wesley shifted up to bring his head next to Gunn's,
and the whisper was straight in Gunn's ear. "You don't
have to stay. I know you're not tired. You must have
things planned." A voice that was trying not to exist.

A pause, then Gunn said, "I'd worry about you, if I
left you alone. It helps, doesn't it, me being here?"

"It helps. But you've showed me that you want to be
here. That's enough. You don't have to stay."

"OK." Gunn raised himself up on his elbow. "What if I
went out to get the car from the library? How'd you be
with that?" Slight hesitation, but then coming down on
"no problem". "I'll bring your phone in. You need me,
you call, OK? Don't have to say a thing. You need me
to come in from next door, anywhere."

Understood. Agreed.

"Y'can't stand to read either, can you? Not if it's in
English. Or only if it's work?" Gunn was wondering
about keeping Wesley busy, find him something to do
apart from struggle to eat and lie on the bed. And no,
Wesley couldn't read.

Gunn called a cab to take him to the library, and once
he had the car he drove to Blockbuster, just in case
they knew of a movie without any words at all. The
clerks seemed to think he was a student with a paper
to write, and they sent him to the arthouse section to
look for himself; but then after a couple of minutes
Gunn heard one of them say, "Oh, yeah!" and then the
guy came over and showed Gunn to a French nature
documentary. "It's all this close-up stuff of this one
field during this one day. Beatles 'n' snails 'n'
birds 'n'... everything. No voice-over, nothing." So
Gunn rented that, and the racks of video games had
given him another idea. There were plenty of games
without words - like most of the games on his
computer. OK, so the shoot-em-ups didn't interest
Wesley, but he might enjoy that pipe-laying game, and
maybe the card-games. And what about games they could
play together at the coffee table, or in the hotel?
Gunn went to Toys 'R' Us and came away with a set of
half-size playing cards, a dice-game, a board-game
with numbered tiles and complicated rules about making
and keeping sets, and a starter-pack for some
dungeons-and-dragons card game. The D&D game
definitely had too many words and would definitely
involve talking, but it seemed closest to the type of
game Wes had enjoyed at school so Gunn was going to
bring that out once Wes was well enough.

Wesley and Angel were both asleep. Gunn got a load of
laundry going, then moved the computer over to the
coffee-table so he'd be able to keep nearby on the
couch while Wesley was playing. He didn't want Wesley
sat on his own at the other side of the room, and he
especially didn't want him sat just a few feet from
Angel's door. Then he got a soda and one of Wesley's
notepads and started making lists of what he'd need to
ask Lilah's squad, and what he'd need to tell them.

The laundry had been almost all Gunn's clothes.
Nothing of Angel's, since he'd been in the same
clothes since Gunn had chained him. And Wes... You
could see how he'd just given up. Stopped noticing. Or
stopped caring. Gunn went in to put the clothes on the
bed and found that Wesley had woken up. He offered to
bring Wesley a glass of the supplement drink and
Wesley accepted, but then Wesley came out to join him
while he was using the blender. The powder had been a
good call: Wesley drank it easily, no reaction to the
taste, not even a pause or a blink. He washed the
glass and then Gunn showed him the computer and the
games and the movie, and explained what he'd been
thinking and why these should be OK. Wesley looked
surprised and impressed, but he also had one of his
half-smiles, like Gunn had done something unbearably
cute. Gunn could ask what but he might not have gotten
an answer even on one of Wesley's best days.

"So I thought we'd have the pasta around seven, then
watch the movie. Then try out the games." Wesley
nodded and gave a full smile, then rubbed at his
stubble and gestured towards the bathroom, which
turned out to mean that he was going to have a bath
and get neatened up.

Gunn was on a roll with the good calls. Wesley's first
few rounds with the pipe-laying game were truly lousy,
but he kept going back for more; and he laughed and
gasped and got thoughtful at the movie, right along
with Gunn; and a couple of times in the games Gunn was
sure he'd been about to swear and argue. Yes, Gunn
would get him better.

Lilah Morgan called on the dot of nine. She had a
squad of six, to work in two teams. She'd email their
details to Gunn, and she'd booked a workout room for
two hours the next morning, for Gunn to put them
through their paces.

"I want to ask how Wesley is, but he's probably
standing right next to you."

"Yeah, but we're doin' OK."

"He's speaking?" Almost breathless, like she'd been
worrying all day.

"Not really. But it'll happen."

Wesley had no problems with the idea of leaving Angel
with the squad, and he trusted Gunn to handle all the
details. He must know how much he needed to get away -
a hundred times more than when Gunn had made him go to
San Diego - and he also trusted Gunn to decide where
they went.

Gunn hadn't gotten to feed Angel again by the time
they went to bed: he'd woken up during the evening,
but as Angelus, and he'd torn the beaker and the book
to shreds, raged for an hour or so about the savour of
his kills, and then quickly fallen asleep. In the
quiet after their second fuck, Gunn became aware of
the sound of movements, repeating but not quite
regular.

"I'll go and check. If it's safe to feed him. Be
easier on the squad if we can get him back to normal."

Angel was gathering up the scraps on paper and pushing
them under the mattress. He knew that Angelus had been
there; and he recognised Gunn. "You're letting them.
You're letting them do it again. Did you make him
watch?"

"I'm not letting them do anything. Angelus didn't hurt
anyone, if that's what you're thinking. He just found
the book in here and tore it up. Look, I'll clear it
away." Gunn went to get a refuse-bag. Best to deal
with it while Angel was calm, because he might not be
safe after he'd had his blood. Gunn hauled the
mattress out of the way, and Angel helped with as much
as he could reach.

Gunn hadn't stood this close to Angel since he'd
chained him up, and he'd been listening to him more
than looking at him when he'd gone in to deal with the
recorder. Gunn was shocked by the sight of Angel up
close, shocked and freaked out, because Angel looked
like a corpse. His skin was a fish-belly white, his
lips were a blue-grey, and his eyes seemed sunk back
in their sockets. No one would ever take him for
human, the way he looked now. It was from hunger,
wasn't it? It had to be. How much blood did he need,
then, to make him look alive? And how long had he been
this bad?

Angel vamped up again when Gunn took the blood into
the room, and Gunn used the same method with a book to
push the beaker towards Angel. This time, though,
Angel didn't reach for the blood. He stared at it,
shaking as he held himself back, and then he changed
back to his human face and looked up at Gunn. "How
long has it been?"

"Two weeks."

Angel swallowed. "Was that them? Or was it you?"

"It was me."

"Because of him."

"Yeah. And you better tell yourself you got off
lightly."

"Is he... Is he better?"

Gunn looked away, down at the mattress, then back at
Angel. "He's different."

"I wouldn't know him." Angel sounded very sure. Like
he finally understood the problems with his memory.
Could he do that?

"Yeah. Well. Be better if you forgot him. Forgot
everything."

Angel had seemed so resigned, Gunn thought he'd
accept, even agree, but instead his control broke and
he vamped up and lunged at Gunn. "Then you don't show
me the sex! We both know you make him different."

Gunn put his foot on the book and started to pull it
out of reach, just in case Angel was angry enough to
throw the beaker; and maybe Angel would have been but
there was the hunger; and from the first touch to his
lips Gunn could see that there was nothing in Angel's
world except the taste of blood. Gunn pulled the book
further back, picked it up, and then left the room and
locked the door.

Showing him the sex. Like Gunn had made him look at
pictures. And Gunn hadn't gone straight in from their
bed, he'd cleaned himself before he went to unlock the
door. What was he supposed to do, have a shower and
get a robe fresh from the laundry? All 'cos this is
the one vampire who can't figure out that humans don't
know how they smell? He went back to bed and got to
work immediately to get Wesley's smell back on all the
parts that he'd washed.

* * * * *

In Lilah's squad, each team had a demon-expert and two
fighters, all local to L.A., and they worked well as a
team. Gunn tried them on demons, L.A. landmarks,
tactics and techniques, based on a combination of old
visions, old street-battles, Wyndham Gunn cases, and
training sessions with the duals. They were good, and
much better than he'd expected at picking up the clues
in the visions and putting together a solid plan, and
fast.

He'd spend the day putting together the briefing and
the set of instructions, and taping samples of Angel
in his different states so they'd know when they could
go in and feed him and when they should stay out.
Angelus was the priority, obviously, but even if he
didn't appear during that day, Gunn was sure he had
samples already on the tape. Assuming Gunn got that
ready, then the squad would be able to move in at an
hour's notice any time from Friday morning, to stay
until the following Sunday. Gunn wanted to leave on
Friday, and before he wrote any instructions he was
going to get out his roadmap, stick pins in three
"possibles", then get online and make sure of their
hotel.

By the time he arrived home, he'd decided not to
bother with the map and the other two choices: he was
going to take Wesley back to San Diego, because he
already knew that San Diego suited Wesley. And this
time it would be even better, because they were going
to stay in that fancy hotel from the Marilyn Monroe
movie - if Gunn could get them a room. Something
really special, something on the level of what they
deserved. And a course of shock-treatment for Wesley's
guilt-ridden hangups about pleasure 'cos Gunn was
guessing that most of those were still there, lying in
wait under the nervous breakdown. He wouldn't tell
Wesley about the hotel. He'd just tell him San Diego
and give him the name of some mid-range hotel, one
near the ocean.

There were rooms available in the Del Coronado, but
the cheapest was more than $300 a night over the
weekend. Even with the rate dropping by $100 in the
week, if they stayed until the Sunday, that would be
nearly $2,500 just for the room - and that was about
half of what they had in the bank, and it could take
years (and a few miracles) to make that back, because
they hadn't come close to covering their bills since
they lost most of their clients.

But it was still the right hotel; Gunn could see
himself checking in there with Wesley. So what could
they afford? Say half that. So they stay in the Del
Coronado for five nights, until the Wednesday (Wesley
should be speaking by then, shouldn't he?), and then
they move somewhere cheaper. He made the reservations
and printed out a list of the cheaper hotels; they
could decide on that once they got there.

* * * * *


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