[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Five 17/20 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Five 17/20

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 wanted Wesley to pack his suit but Wesley
refused, even when Gunn said that the vacation would
be like a whole week of dates, and wasn't that part of
the package, when you were lucky enough to get a date
with Wesley Wyndham-Pryce? Well, it took more than one
"no" to make Charles Gunn give up, and he packed the
suit and the shirts himself at the last minute, while
Wesley was packing the games and some beer.

Gunn didn't talk much during the drive. Sometimes a
sight along the road would remind him of something
that seemed worth telling, and Wesley nodded and acted
interested, and laughed when he should. He hadn't
spoken, though, since that time in the bedroom; guess
Gunn hadn't done anything since to make him need to
talk.

They got to San Diego just after four, which was the
check-in time at the hotel. Gunn was watching Wesley's
reaction as carefully as he could from the moment he
took the exit for Coronado, and, really, it couldn't
have been any better, not if Wesley had been giving a
running commentary. From the sudden alert interest
("Oh, I remember this"), to the grunt of the first
thud of suspicion ("Surely not?") to the gasp of
realisation.

While he'd been imagining checking into the Hotel Del
with Wesley, he hadn't forgotten there would be a
clerk looking at the two of them, knowing the keys
were for a room with a kingsize bed. Thinking "Fags".
Thinking "Freaks". And feeling so superior for all the
rest of the day, just from knowing he wasn't one of
them. Gunn was prepared: he was going to act like he'd
checked in with Wesley to a hundred hotels better than
this; and it turned out the clerk was a Hispanic girl
and she was good, not even a flicker over Wesley's
arm. Must be telling herself, over and over, that
their money was the same colour as anyone else's.

Wesley spoke about half an hour after they checked in,
when they were having their first walk along the
beach. He kept on stopping and turning to look back at
the hotel, and after one especially-long look he said,
"We're really on holiday. We're really here." Not a
whisper, his normal voice, and then he turned to look
straight at Gunn. "And we really can't afford this."

"Nah, we can't. But we're here anyway. Least till
Wednesday. I say we make the most of it." He was
expecting Wesley to ask about Wednesday, but Wesley
just smiled, reached out to touch his arm, and then
carried on along the beach.

After the walk they explored the hotel, with Gunn all
the time thinking ahead to dinner. When he was sure
they'd seen all the restaurants and bars, he asked
Wesley where he wanted to eat. "Or we could get room
service?" A difficult question for Wesley. He looked
up at the beams in the ceiling of the enormous lobby
and his expression said, "We're really here," and then
he looked over at the group of couples standing a few
feet away, just arrived and launched into three or
four conversations and he was tense again, like Gunn
hadn't seen since Wednesday afternoon. The hotel was
getting busy, the weekend starting for real.

"Y'know, let's make it room service. Maybe come down
for a drink later? See what the beach is like late at
night."

The beach was cold, and they had it almost to
themselves. They held hands, and Gunn listened to the
soft crunching of their footsteps and the long
exhalations of the waves, and he wasn't worrying about
Wesley, he wasn't trying to think of the next thing to
do or say. The bar was still too noisy for Wesley;
Gunn got two glasses of bourbon and they took them up
to their room.

They'd decided to spend Saturday morning at Balboa
Park, maybe longer depending on the crowds. They
arrived just as the museums were opening, and seemed
to be the  first through the door at the Folk Art
Museum. Gunn got interested in the range of materials:
from paper, to leather, to wood, to wool, to clay, to
bone; and he started looking for patterns and
differences in what the different people had done with
the same material. Something else had caught Wesley's
attention, judging by his slow pace and look of
concentration, but Gunn couldn't tell what.

They kept close, though not often together, and in the
Russian section it look Gunn a while to realise that
Wesley was waiting for him, definitely wanted him to
see this yellow wooden duck with the huge, smooth body
and tiny pointed head.

"What is it about ducks, do you suppose? I can't
imagine that they've ever been essential to any
peasant economy, and yet you find ten ducks to every
pig and every goat."

Gunn nodded and looked around for ducks. "Maybe
they're just easy to draw. Y'don't even have to bother
with the feet less you feel like it. Leave 'em off 'n'
say it's swimmin'."

"That's a good point. Even I can draw a duck. Or a
fish. I would never attempt a goat."

Gunn pointed at the other end of the case. "Lot of
frogs, too. Y'know what you were sayin' 'bout peasant
economies. Go double for frogs, wouldn't it? Though
kind of blows a hole in the easy-to-draw thing."

Wesley looked thoughtful. "Don't ducks eat frogs?
Maybe the connection - and the importance - would be
obvious if we were peasants. We just don't have that
relationship to animals, have never met anyone who
does. What's more striking than the ducks is that
there are hardly any images of people here at all. And
yet the animals don't really have any personality.
They're not portraits. Maybe you don't make portraits
of animals you know you're going to kill."

So when did people make portraits of animals? They
discussed that while they were wandering through the
rest of the museum, not really looking at the exhibits
any more. Then Wesley brought in children's books:
full of animals, like the museum, with hardly any
people. Wasn't it fascinating that children spent so
much of their childhoods identifying with animals - or
with characters that were labelled as animals, because
of course they were nothing to do with real bears or
hedgehogs or mice? And were the animals there because
children found it difficult to identify with people?
Did they recognise so early on that people were
complicated and demanding? And treacherous. Whereas
animals were simple. You could build up almost
anything about an animal, and you'd never be proved
totally wrong. A bear might rip your face off, but it
wouldn't turn around one day and tell you everything
it had always found annoying about you, including most
of the things that you thought made you friends.

They went around the Museum of Art looking for
portraits of animals, and then they had a late lunch
in a Thai restaurant in the Gaslight District. They
were still talking about children's books and Gunn
suggested they go to Borders because he wanted to show
Wesley the Richard Scarry books that he'd grown up
with and that they didn't seem to have in England. Wes
loved the drawings and bought one of the books, a
really basic word-builder without even a story, though
crowded with incidents in every picture. There were
nearly as many monsters and imaginary creatures as
animals in the books, and that led on, over coffee and
then back at the hotel, to what Wesley knew about
demon folk-art, and about books and toys for demon
children.

They had dinner in the hotel restaurant, with a view
of the ocean, played dice and drank beer, had the
midnight beach to themselves again, and drank their
bourbons in the bar. Wesley fell silent sometimes: in
the car, on the beach, or when people moved too close,
or seemed to notice them, or suddenly stopped talking,
or suddenly started talking. The first few times Gunn
thought he might have lost him for the day and that
would have been OK, but it was even better to get him
back, and to learn that he would be back, that he'd
make his way to the surface again after maybe ten
minutes, maybe half an hour.

* * * * *

They had breakfast in their room on Sunday morning,
with the plan of spending the whole morning in bed
(maybe the entire day). Around eleven Wesley made them
some more coffee, and when they had their mugs and
were settled against the pillows, Gunn said, "I've
missed you, Wes. Didn't realise how much till maybe a
few hours ago. Before then..." A sigh. "Hadn't been
thinking much past all the ways it tore me up to see
you so bad. Main thing I was thinking about gettin'
you better was how seein' that would stop me feelin'
torn up. Never got as far as... how good it was gonna
be for me to have you back."

"I'm sorry." Wesley was frowning so hard, like all
he'd heard was "torn up".

Gunn shook his head, meaning they were past that, the
two of them. "D'you know why you got so bad? What's
the best thing I should do if you get that way again?"
Wesley was still frowning, but now it was like he was
trying to think what to say. "Wes? Do you know why?"

A sigh, then Wesley nodded, several times. He'd gone
very tense.

"It's happened to you before?" Gunn was making a
sudden guess. "Way you get when... it's too much?"

Another sigh, a long one, then Wesley shrugged
slightly and tilted his head to the side a couple of
times.

Gunn waited about five seconds then said, "Can't tell
for sure if that's 'kind of' or 'not really'. Or
whereabouts in between." An even longer wait. Wesley
was looking hard at him, but Gunn couldn't read the
expression. " 's OK, Wes. Y'don't hafta pin it down
for me. Just... when you're ready... give me something
that'll help me for next time."

Wesley shook his head sharply, gave a sound like a
grunt, then took a deep breath and said, "No. It's
both. It's 'not really' in that... I've never had a
breakdown before. But a very large part of it was
because..." He swallowed. "Because so many things that
I thought were in my past... They seemed to be
happening again."

Like being raped? Had that been the start, even before
Barney? "Things you'd told me about? Or - Or other
things?"

"Things that -" Wesley closed his eyes tight for
several seconds, tense almost to the point of
writhing. When he opened his eyes, he shook his head
hard then said, "Whatever I'd told you, I would have
said it as if it didn't matter any more. Because I
thought I'd changed. I'd left it behind."

Slowly: "Wes. The things you've told me about your
past... Well, they all sounded just fucking terrible.
Not like they didn't matter, more... like you hadn't
even figured out yet how to get angry enough about
them."

"Oh." A pause. "What did I tell you about what I was
like before I arrived in L.A.?"

"Like in Sunnydale?"

Wesley shrugged, like Sunnydale would do as well as
anything else.

"You never told me much. But it sounded like you
must've been lonely as hell."

Wesley closed his eyes again, then turned his head
hard away from Gunn. Very quietly: "I was useless.
I've always been useless."

Gunn shifted onto his side, to be able to put his
right arm around Wesley's waist. "There's nothing you
could tell me that'd make me believe that. Only thing
you've always been is... with the wrong people. Who
never had the sense to see what they could've had.
What they could've learned from you."

A thin moan, and Wesley was trying to pull away from
Gunn, like he was Angel trying to hide. But Gunn
clamped his hand around Wesley's shoulder and forced
Wesley back to lie flat on the bed, and raised himself
so he could see more of Wesley's face.

"Wes. Wes. God, I know it still hurts you fierce
but... Look, haven't I always made it better when
you've let me close? When you stop tryin' to do it all
on y'r own? Tell me what... I dunno... what
Sunnydale's got to do with why you got so bad. With
what happened with Angel. With the speaking. Tell me
now. Just get it done."

Wesley slowly turned his head back and looked up at
Gunn. Wesley's bleak, accepting look, that Gunn knew
too well. "I know I have to tell you. But I've been so
scared of losing you."

The last thing Gunn expected to hear. It'd felt to him
during those long, terrible weeks like Wesley hadn't
thought of him more than maybe ten times - and then
only when he had to. Quietly: "Because of what
happened with Angel?"

Wesley shook his head, very definite. "Because of what
I am. I know you don't want to believe it but... I'm
ashamed of almost everything I did with my life before
I came to L.A. And of how I did it. Everyone who met
me soon found themselves wishing they hadn't. Within
minutes, for Angel in Sunnydale."

"And then he changed his mind. When he got to know you
properly."

"No. No. He - He gave me the chance to change. Almost
before he started teaching me to fight, he was acting
as if he'd forgotten what I used to be like. He was
taking me for granted as... someone who was worth the
effort to have around. Who'd generally make himself
useful."

Oh. Of course. So that was why Wesley would face
anything for his vampire. Why Angel would always come
first. Gunn saw it now. Angel hadn't just saved
Wesley's life, he'd saved him from hating himself. Had
Angel known that, when he'd been lucid? Did he know
how he'd earned himself that total loyalty?

Gunn stroked Wesley's arm, trying to think what to
say, but Wesley had only paused for a few seconds.

"And then I met you. And having you want me, and
finding out that I was able to make you happy... I
knew then that I really had changed. It didn't even
hurt to think of what I used to be like, because I
felt as if the worst had been cancelled out." A long
breath in, and then out. "And then there was Barney.
And I learned that I hadn't changed at all. I'd never
changed. I'd just... managed to put on a shell. So
really I'd been deluded as well as useless. And Angel
should have seen through it. The way I'd trusted his
judgement, he should have seen through it." Wesley's
voice was getting more and more ragged. Gunn wanted to
soothe him, wanted to hush him, but he was sure he'd
been right before: Wesley did have to tell him, Wesley
did have to get this done.

" 'n' you were thinkin' worse about me? 'bout my
judgement?"

Wesley shook his head. "The man you'd fallen in love
with, he'd been real for you. He was... what I would
have wanted to be. But now I knew I couldn't be, I
couldn't hide in the delusion any more. So I didn't...
have any right to your love. And I knew that one day
you'd realise what you were living with, and I'd see
it, the moment when you stopped being able to love me.
I couldn't try to keep you, of course I couldn't, I
had no right to you. I knew there were things I should
be doing to make you go, but I wasn't strong enough."
Wesley was blinking hard, like he was just managing to
fight back tears.

Two months Wesley had been living with that, two
months. Gunn got choked himself, swallowed, then took
a deep breath. "You tried to tell me, didn't you?
'bout feelin' like a shell. Kept on tryin' to tell me.
'n' I couldn't stand to hear it. Told you to stop
talking. Is that... why you got so bad you couldn't
talk at all?"

"No. That was something else. A separate breakdown. I
think I might have been having at least four of them,
all at the same time. I'm probably eligible for some
sort of award."

Gunn smiled, just for a second. "Well, I know you're
better on the talking one. How 'bout the first one?
You still feel like I'm gonna see through you? Like
you're stuck back in your past?"

A shrug and a sigh. "I think I'm going to keep on
having bad days for a long time to come. I can still
feel it dragging me down. It's... relaxing in some
ways just to give up on myself, to let it drag me
straight down to the bottom. To tell myself that it's
fate, this is what I was always meant to be."

Gunn nodded. "So that's how you were thinkin' whenever
you took yourself off to the laundry room. That's how
it started with Angel. I thought you were just...
makin' things worse every way you could."

"Well, I was."

"Yeah, but I get it now. I thought you were making it
all up from nothing since Barney. Which looked
scary-crazy, Wes. Looks different when I know you'd
been there before."

"I'm sorry I scared you."

"I know. But you've found a way of fighting back now,
right? Like... you have times when you know you're
never gonna lose me? Wes, you're the exact same man I
fell in love with. Even when you were acting craziest,
I never for a second thought, 'Jeez, who is this guy?
Think I been suckered. Palmed off with somethin' in
the wrong box.' It was still you, every fucked-up step
of the way. The exact way my Wes would go about having
four or five breakdowns." He moved his hand up and
threaded his fingers through Wesley's hair. "Yeah,
it's hurt like hell to be in love with you these last
weeks, not gettin' the first clue what I could do to
help. But you already made me happy again. Even before
we got here, you made me happy enough to cancel out
all the hurting. Act like you want me with you, like
you want more of me, that's all you gotta do."

Wesley pulled him down, and they kissed for a very
long time. When they finally pulled apart to just lie
and look at one another, Wesley said, "This is the
reason I'm determined to get better. Why I'm going to
fight every inch against the temptation to give up on
myself. So I can earn this. Because I want it so
much."

All Gunn could manage to say was "Good. Good," and
then they were kissing again.

* * * * *


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