[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Six 6/12 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Six 6/12

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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The Kekulei demons had reached a decision: there was
something Wesley could do to atone, and that was to
redecorate the church and their other community
spaces, from top to bottom. They'd supply all of the
equipment and the materials, they'd arrange any
repairs or any structural work that needed to be
fitted around the redecoration; but they expected him
to work to a very high standard, and he was going to
have to work around their schedule, because the
buildings were staying in use and the most they'd do
would be to close off one room over a weekend if the
fumes from the paint were going to be too bad. And,
no, Gunn was not allowed to help, Wesley had to do
everything himself.

They informed Wesley of the decision on the 30th of
December, he spent two hours with them on the 2nd of
January looking over all of the rooms and discussing
the schedule, and he started the work the next day.
The first room on his list was used throughout the
day, up to ten in the evening. He got there at a
quarter to ten. The last people in the room helped him
move the furniture, as agreed, and by eleven the
caretaker had locked up, leaving him on his own.
They'd given him a key to the back door so he was able
to let himself out when he got finished just after
four - with one coat of paint applied to the
third-largest ceiling, and all of the equipment
cleared away so the first group in would only have to
move the furniture back. Gunn was woken by the sound
of Wesley running a bath, and he got up and helped
Wesley scrub the flecks of white paint out of his
hair, off his glasses, and especially off his hand and
arm. He was exhausted, and he also had a mass of
bruises all down his right side. Most were from
pushing the ladder around, but he admitted that the
worst were from falling off the ladder, when he'd
misjudged and overbalanced.

"It took me a while to accept how small the steps are
that I have to take, not having that spare arm for
support. I daren't really move more than about two
feet at a time on either side. Which meant I had to
move the ladder about six hundred times. And then go
up and down it six hundred times - which was how I did
most of the falling, before I got truly pathetically
cautious. Fortunately the ceilings are relatively low.
And the Kekulei aren't trying to set any deadline."

"The ceilings still sound high enough to be fucking
dangerous! What're they thinkin'? I mean, that's what
I'd call vindictive."

Wesley was shaking his head. "No, it was good of them
to choose something that they actually want done, that
they'll value and have with them for a long time. I
thought they'd probably come up with some make-work,
that wouldn't benefit anyone and that they didn't care
about. Where the only point was to take up my time and
have me on show. They didn't choose this because it
would be difficult for me, they chose it because they
agreed that they wanted it. They know I'll need help
with some things. They've organised themselves to give
it when I ask. And I found my rhythm eventually. The
last two hours were much easier."

The next night Wesley went to the church straight from
training with the duals, and he was home by three.
Before he could start the walls, he needed someone to
mask off the edge of the ceiling for him; it was more
convenient for the Kekulei to leave that until Sunday
afternoon, which meant that Wesley had a night off.

Piriti had called Wesley several times checking for
news about the Kekulei, but he hadn't called since
they made their decision so Wesley dropped by the nest
on Saturday afternoon. When Piriti heard about the
delay with masking the ceiling, he immediately said
that he could do that, and Wesley agreed to ask the
Kekulei if they could include Piriti in the
rehabilitation program - just for the tasks that
needed two arms, he'd say, not to take any of the work
from Wesley that he could do himself.

The question of Piriti had to go to a council, but
they had their answer by Tuesday and the answer was
yes. They knew about Piriti, that he'd been Barney's
route to Wesley, so, yes, it was appropriate. But
Wesley had to take all responsibility for him, they
didn't want to have to organise him too. Wesley and
Piriti arranged that Piriti would get himself a new
pager, and that Wesley would collect him from home
each time, and take him back when he'd done his part.

Wesley's schedule was very irregular, depending on the
day's bookings for his current room, and on whether or
not Piriti was going to be able to sneak out of the
house. The Kekulei were good about informing him of
last-minute changes - and Piriti probably did as well
as he could. Wesley could have made his life a lot
easier if he'd decided just to start at eleven each
night, but instead he usually started as early as
possible, to increase the number of waking-hours he
spent with Gunn.

The earlier he started, the more Kekulei demons would
be in the building while he was working. If there were
more than ten, he said, then he knew to expect some
kind of display of hostility; he didn't count what
they said in their own language, because he was sure
those people thought he couldn't understand a word.
There was never any real threat - they knew he was
under strong protection - but they were determined to
make their position clear. Wesley would agree with
them (he made a stock of four or five standard
replies), and then explain that he had to get back to
work.

Otherwise nobody talked to him, not really, nothing
beyond the organisation needed for his work. And he
said that was how it should be, but Gunn could see him
sliding back toward his "non-person" place, the place
where the tape had put him, where he drank blood and
could only watch a movie if there weren't any words.
He was spending more and more time in his thrift-shop
clothes (all good painting clothes, he said), he was
starting to give himself breaks from shaving, and he
was talking in his sleep again, those long
conversations that Gunn guessed were still in Dirkou.
Gunn didn't hassle him - he was in a tough situation,
course it was gonna have an effect on him - but tried
to give him good things to keep him anchored in the
real world: making their shared evenings into "dates",
with Gunn doing the cooking and Wesley encouraged into
his suit; and buying him a radio to keep him company
during the long, boring hours of painting. This
wouldn't last forever. Months, with Wesley having to
work so careful and slow, but not forever.

* * * * *

A week or so after Wesley had started the painting,
Gunn got a call from Grouw. "Have you... Did you know
there's this picture of Wesley being passed around?"

Gunn's mind immediately went to Angel's drawing of
Wesley on the mattress, but they'd torn that up, and
who could have got to it, anyway? "What picture?"

"Um... Be best if you come down here when I get off
work. I got a copy I can show you."

"It's bad?"

"It's not good. Gonna need some clever handling. I've
been telling people it has to be a joke but - Really
hoping there's nothing more out there."

The picture was a black-and-white glossy, like a
publicity shot. The photo showed Wesley in motorbike
leathers, all black, helmet in his left hand, resting
on the saddle of the bike, crossbow in his right, down
by his thigh. Background looked like an alley on the
outskirts of some desert town. There wasn't stubble as
Gunn had come to know it, but Wesley was definitely
going all-out for the look of "on the road for days
solid, seen things you couldn't ever imagine". A
transparent piece of posing, best kept between you and
your bedroom mirror, but kind of understandable for a
glasses-wearing English geek, all fired up about his
first-ever road-trip, Hot, but like a stranger: you
wouldn't want him to talk, you'd never guess he had
those half-smiles. You'd do it standing in some
doorway. He'd pull your pants down quickly with those
two hands, and he'd hold you with them, tight, and
that wouldn't mean anything, not to him, not to you.

But the picture wasn't the problem. The picture was
easy enough to pass off as a joke, or just to shrug
off as proof that Wesley had watched the same movies
as every other kid on the block. The problem was the
words in the space beneath the picture. "Wesley
Wyndham-Pryce. Rogue Demon Hunter." With a cellphone
number.

It was one thing to have macho fantasies. It was
another thing to act them out, go vigilante. Yeah,
everyone knew that Wesley had killed demons but that
was knowing him as earnest, honourable, one-armed
Wesley, who couldn't tell any kind of lie, who killed
only to protect, only when he had to. This Wesley in
the picture, he killed for kicks, needed it for his
fantasy, and you'd never get the truth for him about
where he'd found the demon, what the demon had been
doing.

"Oh, fuck!" Gunn dropped the photo on the seat and
slammed the heel of his hand hard against his
forehead.

"Yeah."

"How long's it been around?"

"Couple of days, I think. There's hundreds of copies.
What was he thinking?"

Gunn shook his head, over and over. "Long time ago.
'nother lifetime, probably seems. Maybe it was a joke.
Where'd it come from?"

A shrug. "The Kekulei, I guess. Barney, even? You'd
better deal with this quick. I'd like to hear
something from him, myself."

Gunn nodded. "I'll get on it. Thanks." A pause. "You
done a lot for us. Got into a lot for us. Guess you
sometimes gotta wonder why."

Grouw frowned, and took a long time to reply. "You're
my only friend where I never know what's gonna happen
next. Nine times out of ten that's a good thing. Well.
Eight times, maybe."

Wesley was at the church, should be done in another
hour. Gunn went home and started the dough and the
sauce for the pizza. He'd put the photo face-down on
the coffee-table, and he wasn't going to look at it
again until he had to, which would be as soon as
Wesley got back.

Wesley didn't look half as surprised as Gunn expected.
Horrified and cringing with embarrassment, but not
surprised.

"You knew this was out there?"

Wesley nodded. "At the hearing on Christmas Day. The
prosecution presented it. They'd done some very
thorough research."

"So what's the story? Wha'd'you tell them at the
hearing? There's a good explanation, right?"

Deep breath in, then gusted out. "No. Not really. This
was taken about three weeks before I got to L.A. I was
fired as a Watcher about three months before that. I
couldn't go home. I made a very clumsy attempt at
reinventing myself. At not caring. When I picked up
the Kungai's trail, I thought -" He closed his eyes
and swallowed. "Barney's trail. Of course. I thought I
should reward myself by making it official. So people
could know who - The only mitigation I can offer is
that I was completely ineffectual. I did no good, but
also no harm. Of course, I don't know how long that
would have lasted if the Kungai hadn't ruled out the
motorbike for me as a central prop."

Gunn looked at the photo for a long time, then back at
Wesley. "That what you told the hearing?"

Wesley nodded. "The prosecution couldn't offer any
evidence of harm. I think they were hoping that I'd be
shocked into revealing my true character. Like the
villain in a fairy-tale."

Slowly: "It was demons that Barney was hurting. You
were trying to stop him." He should have remembered
that immediately, but that picture had packed too much
of a punch. "Who's gonna have a problem with that kind
of demon-hunting?"

"The defence did make that point. But I know the man
in that picture better than they do. He was truly a
shell. There shouldn't be any excuses made for him."

Gunn reached out, ripped the photo across, and again,
and dropped the pieces out of sight behind the arm of
the couch. "OK, he's gone. But we need to say
something about him. Someone's put hundreds of copies
out there. Gotta be people workin' away right now,
makin' up each others minds. We need to get in 'n'
unmake 'em."

"What do you suggest?"

Gunn shrugged and pulled a face. "Grouw's been tellin'
people it has to be a joke." Wesley was shaking his
head, almost violently. "No, I know, wrong excuse.
Stinks for anyone who knows you. But... What you just
told me? That you'd just got fired? You were doin' the
redefinition thing? This is L.A, that thing is what we
do here. You give 'em that background, they'll take
another look at the picture and go, 'Oh, yeah. That's
three-months-fired alright. Like that summer I was
gonna grow all my own food.' You mind that gettin'
out? 'bout you bein' fired?"

Wesley shook his head. "What do we do? Put up posters?
Organise a press-conference?"

Gunn couldn't tell if Wesley was joking. "I'll just do
the rounds. Talk to people till they know there's no
mileage in that picture. Shiny machine, but the tank's
empty."

After they'd eaten Gunn called Grouw, and then he
decided to get started on the rounds straight away:
couldn't do better than Saturday night, and with the
training and Wesley's schedule at the church, it would
be days before he had another evening free. He made
good progress, and also worked out the next places he
needed to include in his rounds; some he could do
during the day, but most were strictly evening.

Wesley was at his desk when Gunn got home, and he was
reading a book in Aramaic (or something), that he'd
bought that day on the way to the church.

"You're feeling ready to go back to translation?
Thought it'd be another month. Maybe more." Gunn
hadn't told Wesley how he was talking in his sleep.
Would have felt like hassling him, but he should know
in himself that he wasn't ready.

"I need some intellectual stimulation. Staring at one
blank wall after another, for hour after hour, day
after day. My mind is starting to cannibalise itself.
I need to remind it what real food tastes like."

Cannibalise? No, Gunn wasn't going to ask. "Be
careful, OK? I'm gonna be watchin' for you gettin'
weird."

In bed, Wesley didn't want sex, didn't even want to be
held. "It's the picture. The idea of you seeing me
like that. I want to disown my whole body."

"You looked hot. Not hot like I'd fall in love with
you, not your real way of bein' hot. But I got no
problems with seein' you like that."

"You weren't..." A sigh. "I would have to seriously
question the judgement of someone who wanted that."

"Oh, come on! You must've got hit on ten times a day.
You turn 'em all down? Or just the women?" He grinned,
showing it as a joke, but Wesley just got more
uncomfortable. He'd been bad on Christmas Day too,
hadn't he? Off sex, and picking at something about
women and Cordy and what did they see. Which would
have been from the hearing, seeing the picture there.

"I decided in the first week that I was the type of
demon hunter who was exclusively heterosexual. A
complete redefinition. Which also meant not the type
of heterosexual that I'd been before. The result
probably looked very funny. Seen from a distance."

A new type of heterosexual. We present another trick
from Wesley's brain. "Cordy didn't know you then?"

"No, that was before. When I was still a Watcher. For
which there are mercifully no photographs."

Gunn nodded, and touched the back of his hand to
Wesley's cheek very lightly, for less than a second.
"You gonna forgive me for thinkin' you were hot?"

A small smile. "I'm halfway there. But can you keep
from reminding me for a couple of days?"

They woke up close against one another the next
morning, and Wesley was happy to stay like that as
they lay and talked. No hint of sex, but enough to
stop Gunn from thinking about counting the days.

* * * * *


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