[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Five 19/20 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Five 19/20

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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They finally started to get hungry around two, and
Gunn volunteered to get dressed and go see what the
hotel had in the way of portable food. He came back
with a couple of wraps, a salad, and some orange
juice. He also got a newspaper, though he wasn't sure
if Wesley had recovered enough to be able to read
properly. Seemed like Wesley was fully recovered, and
after the headlines he went straight to the movie
listings, and they soon decided they'd spend the rest
of the afternoon walking around the island, go to the
7 p.m. showing of "Ocean's Eleven", and then find the
seafood place that Wesley had enjoyed when he was in
San Diego on his own.

Over their late-night drink in the hotel bar, Wesley
said he was getting the restless feeling that went
with not having any proper books within reach - where
"proper" meant enough to get him through a six-hour
delay in an airport - so they'd go to Borders in the
morning, and then Wesley would settle somewhere and
read for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Gunn
wanted to check out some of the hotels for Wednesday,
just to get it out of the way. No need to make
reservations, he was pretty sure; there wasn't going
to be a sudden rush on hotel rooms, not between a
Monday and a Wednesday, so they wouldn't lose anything
by keeping their options wide open.

Gunn said, "Damn, it's good to have you reading again.
To watch a regular movie with you again. That
not-speaking... It really dug in deep."

Wesley pulled a face, which Gunn had been expecting,
then quickly glanced around the room, shook his head
sharply, and frowned even more deeply. "My problems
with reading and with..." A sigh. "And with speech
from other people. That was... a descent into an
all-consuming paranoia. Whereas my problems with my
own speech were in the form of a paralysing state of
panic. It was connected to my past, but... in a
different direction from my conviction that I was
going to lose you. But I'd rather tell you when we're
back in bed."

Gunn nodded, laid his hand briefly over the back of
Wesley's hand, and Wesley smiled and brought the
conversation back to George Clooney.

Wesley wanted to kiss first, though he warned Gunn
that he probably wouldn't want sex that night. "The
paranoia... I think it's closest to me still than any
of the other problems. And it makes me feel very...
disconnected. As if none of my nerves really belong to
me. Even with you here saying all the right things,
I'm going to be in a strange state by the time I've
finished telling you about it."

Gunn shook his head. "Back in L.A., when I was
figurin' out where to take you, I never thought you'd
even be talkin' by now. You're workin' so damn hard,
Wes, t'get y'rself better. 'n' it feels like most of
that's for me."

Gunn thought Wesley must have been planning since the
bar how he was going to tell it. When he pulled back
from the kiss, he only paused for a few seconds. His
voice was quiet, but it was steady, determined. "It
was the tape. Having the tape set there in Angel's
room. It took me back to a time in my life when the
people around me refused to speak to me. Anything I
tried to -" A sigh. "They wouldn't trust me. They'd
never trust me. They'd all decided exactly what to
think of me. They'd act as if I didn't exist, and when
they talked about me, it really was as if they didn't
know I could hear."

"That's when the bastards were treating you like you
were a management spy? That's the time you meant when
you told it to me like that?"

Wesley nodded then swallowed. "I felt like a thing. As
if I truly didn't exist in the same world as them. And
having the tape in there judging me. Not trusting me.
And the way that whenever you came home you'd go
straight in there and listen to what it had to say
about me, while I was..." A deep breath. "While I was
shut away somewhere else so you didn't even have to
look at me. And I know that wasn't why you had me go
to the bedroom. And I know I'd betrayed you, I'd given
you so many reasons not to trust me. Everything you
did was entirely reasonable. The rational part of me
truly wanted to give you anything you asked, and was
astounded that you were asking so little. But that
rational part just couldn't get in control of what was
happening in my mind."

"Sounds like... tryin' to hang a picture straight
while there's an earthquake goin' on."

Wesley laughed. "Yes. And while you're standing in
quicksand."

"So you thought I was like one of those 'management
spy' guys? Really feelin' that hard about you? Like
you'd never get me to trust you? I'd never really give
you a chance?"

Wesley shook his head hard. "That would still be
giving me too much credit for rational thought. In my
mind, the tape itself was those people from my past.
It was the tape that was listening to me and judging
me and deciding that I had no place in the world with
the... with the real people. And it was right. I
couldn't pretend that it wasn't right. And all around
me there was the proof of how real people took up
their world together. Speaking to each other and
hearing each other and seeing each other as real. And
it was... And it was sinister and pathetic for me to
keep on trying to spy on them. It was time for me
to... It was long past time for me to take myself off
to the place that had been set up for me. Or - that
didn't have any choice except to take me. It was time
for me to accept. But it - it hurt. Seeing the real
people so busy talking to each other. Writing things
for each other. And knowing that in the place I
belonged... That I was the only thing that would ever
be sent there."

A hell dimension. That was how Wesley was thinking,
wasn't it? He thought he belonged in the cell next to
Angel - but where the guards would lock the door and
then never think of him again.

"It hurt you just to see a book?"

Wesley nodded slowly. "A book in English or... in a
language that living people spoke. But if it didn't
belong in this world either - because it was dead, or
because it was spoken by demons - then it wasn't
spying and the book..." A long sigh. "It felt as if
the book wanted me to read it. Had been waiting for
me. And I thought that... I might manage to accept my
place if there were books like that there. I could use
their thoughts, I could fill my mind with them. I'd
never have to find myself alone, to have to look at my
own thoughts."

"I'm guessin' you even stopped thinking in English."

Wesley nodded. "After about a week. My mind... fitted
itself to Dirkou. I don't know why it chose that."

"Yeah. You started speakin' it in your sleep. Started
speakin' somethin', anyway. First few days you'd been
whisperin' in English. Shushin' yourself, really
tense. Really needin' to speak, c'n see that now, but
back then... I wasn't gonna give an inch, I wasn't
gonna spend one more second thinkin' 'bout what was
goin' on with you - not till you fell in with every
step I was set on for how you were gonna pay me back
over what you'd done with Angel."

"Oh, Charles. I wanted that as much as you did. With
every part of me.  There's no part of me that's so...
deranged that it wants to give you one ounce less that
you deserve. I never lost sight of what I should be
doing. But there was a wall between the person I
wanted to be, the person you should have, and I made
myself so many promises but I couldn't seem to
control... I only seemed to have one way of reacting.
Even when I could see it hurting you."

Gunn pulled Wesley close and held him tight, and made
himself promises about the ways he'd do better by
Wesley in the future. Christ, he couldn't have done
much worse over this. He'd told Lilah that Angel
messed Wesley up, but that was nothing to what he'd
done himself with the gagging and the tape.

"How long d'you think we'd've kept on like that?
Another week? Another month, even? If Lilah had kept
on givin' you work in your dead languages. That's what
pushed you over, wasn't it? When she told you she
wasn't gonna give you another one."

Wesley nodded. "I don't remember much about what
happened at the library. I don't think I really knew
who Lilah was. She was just... the method that the
pages used to reach me. So they could turn themselves
into my thoughts, and then into more thoughts and more
pages. I remember the feeling that... they'd given up
on me and that I - I had to get away from myself
before..." A shrug. "I don't know. I think I had some
idea of going looking for more pages. Finding another
supply."

Gunn told Wesley what he knew about the meeting in the
library - all the reasons Lilah could never have given
him the next piece of work. "She said you came alive
when you were speakin' that language. When you
couldn't even look at her before. So she just let you
talk, she couldn't bring herself to stop you. You were
like that with me when you were talking in your sleep.
Been whisperin' in English, actin' really messed up.
But then when you switched to that language, you were
havin' normal conversations. Yeah, you came alive."

Wesley was nodding. "I've never gone so far before
that I couldn't bear to read English, but finding
another language to think in has always been my surest
way of escaping. Of making myself indifferent to...
the judgement of the people around me. I was... I was
probably quite close to a breakdown in the first three
months after my family got me - I'd been happy doing
research. I was good at it. I knew what to do. And the
people... they were happy to have me working with
them. Being moved from that to - I did try to break
through, I did. But it just seemed to give them more
to -"

He closed his eyes, then shook his head hard and took
a deep breath. "But then I found that books would
still talk to me. And that a new language would put me
in a state of total concentration. I could shut out
everything for hours, I could forget what I'd felt
during the day. I've always had that but now there
was... When I stopped thinking in English then it was
like being in a different world, with different rules.
Different values. Where I could speak and they were
outside. Not that they wanted to be inside, but the
few times they showed me any respect, it was because
of my work on linguistics; they admitted that I did
work. And with other linguists, I started making
contacts again. Not really friends, I - I seemed to
have lost that. But when we kept to our languages then
there were always things we could talk about. So the
languages were a refuge for me on every level. Back
then I felt as if they saved my sanity. This time I
think... they allowed me to pretend to function for
long enough to... give my diverse collection of
neuroses the chance to really bond as a creative
team." He was shaking his head, looking exasperated.
"You'd asked me what I was doing with the packs of
blood. Would you believe I was drinking it? I was
drinking it cold. I was trying to live on it."

Yeah, Gunn could believe that. "Was that 'cos I wasn't
feedin' him? Was that another way I messed you up?" He
wasn't ever going to tell Wesley the other things he'd
believed about the blood, how he'd spied on Wesley
from the truck.

"No, it wasn't to do with him. Or with you. Except
that... he's not a real person either. And that's what
he drinks. So it was part of... accepting where I
belonged. Normal food... I thought it would turn to
ashes if I tried to put it in my mouth. In a way, I
simply didn't believe in it any more. Not as something
that had any meaning for me."

Gunn frowned and pulled a face, trying to push away
the thought of the taste: the ashes, and the cold
blood. "Yeah, man. You gotta break up that team. Stop
'em creatin'. Or send 'em to work writin' some
off-the-wall cult sitcom. Just get 'em out of the
house."

A brief laugh. "I've booked a cab to take them to the
airport. And I'll definitely be changing the locks.
And I think they're all too self-conscious and
inhibited to come back and yell abuse up at our window
in the middle of the night."

Gunn's turn to laugh. "I'd be straight down there,
seein' 'em off." Then he turned serious and reached up
to lay his palm along Wesley's cheek. "What d'you feel
now, Wes? 'bout that idea that you don't belong. What
sort of hold's it got on you?"

Wesley looked thoughtful. Slowly: "It's similar to the
idea that I'd never changed after all. That you'd
fallen in love with a shell. They're very closely
related. And my answer to both is that I want to
change, I want to belong. For you first of all: to
deserve you, to be less of a burden on you, so you
only have to worry about me... a normal amount. But
also because I think it's wrong for me to keep on
trying to hide. With the exception of... the mistake I
made with Barney, I've done most good in the world in
the times when I've been most contented with myself.
And I've done most harm in the times when I've
despised myself. So I'll leave other people to hold
out for the ideals of natural justice. As they might
apply to me. And I'll concentrate instead on... the
approach that seems most likely to produce positive
results."

Had he even started to believe what Gunn had told him:
that he'd been with the wrong people? But then Gunn
had told that to him just once, and those other people
had been telling him their things for most of his
life.

* * * * *

Wesley got a couple of history books in Borders (on
religion and on salt), and after lunch he took the
salt book down to the courtyard. Gunn spent an hour in
the fitness centre, then bought coffee for both of
them. He'd meant to stay just for a few minutes, but
the courtyard really was peaceful, like he and Wesley
were the only people who'd ever found it, and he
fetched a deck of cards from their room and sat
crossways on a bench and played solitaire. Wesley read
him odd facts from the book, and Gunn wondered how
long it would be before he'd be taking this for
granted: the ordinary quiet-evening-at-home stuff of
being a comfortable, well-matched couple.

They stayed nearly until sunset, when most of Wesley's
light for reading was coming from the hotel rooms
above him. As they were leaving to watch the sunset
from the beach, Wesley pointed to a chair on the far
side of the courtyard.

"That's where I was sitting when I got the idea for
the survey."

Gunn felt a jolt of shock - at just the mention of the
survey, at the idea that he'd forgotten. Two days ago
the shock would have been bad enough to make him want
to take himself off to bang his head against a wall
and mutter "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" - because he never
would have brought Wesley to this hotel if he'd
remembered. But then two days ago he'd still had no
clue what had gone wrong with Wesley, and he'd been
working on sheer hope that he'd be able to put it
right. And two days ago Wesley wouldn't have felt
strong enough to say that word.

"Was a good idea, Wes. Lot of people thought so. For
the right reasons."

Wesley nodded, serious and thoughtful. "Of course I'd
want it undone but... I didn't know. Back then I
didn't know. I couldn't know. It would have been
alright if I'd just thought properly about Barney. Or
about the Kungai. I was so wrong about the Kungai. We
should have been working together. It shouldn't have
died."

"No one was thinking properly about Barney, Wes. He
probably thought you'd never admit to anyone about
your mistake. 'stead he's on Wanted posters in every
demon bar in the country. He's gotta be wishin' he'd
left you alone. Didn't sound to me like he was lookin'
to retire on this one."

Gunn felt like he'd put that point to Wesley a hundred
times, but this time Wesley was letting himself think
about it. Maybe that was even a nod, though as small a
nod as you could get. Eventually Wesley said, "We
should find out what's happening with the
investigation."

"Yeah. We'll call Swift when we get home."

* * * * *


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