[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part One 9/11 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part One 9/11

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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Dean and George were giving the self-defence class
with Gunn that afternoon at Anne's shelter.
Afterwards, when they were having a soda with Anne in
the kitchen, Dean said, "And Gunn's got a new honey.
Who we haven't met yet. Takes off every night.
Including tonight, right? When you even gonna tell us
where you're going?"

"When it's any of your business. Which looks like
bein' never. You know my cell phone. You know I don't
turn it off."

George said, "Never? We're never gonna meet her?
What's she scared of? South Central? Or a bit of
dust?"

"Still none of your business."

George said, "I know! It's Julia Roberts, isn't it?"
And he and Dean fell about laughing, and then started
swapping names. Gunn shrugged at Anne and let them get
on with it, waiting for Cordy's name to appear, and
wondering if he'd be able to keep himself from
reacting. But they gave up the joke after just a few
film stars, and didn't move on to TV.

As Anne was walking them to the door, she turned to
Gunn and said, "How's that English demon guy? Have you
seen him since?"

"He's good." Gunn could hear the hushed tenderness in
his own voice, quite beyond his control. But Anne just
nodded, barely interested, and the others hadn't even
been listening.

Gunn brought his team back from patrol shortly before
three, and this time he did more than his fair share
of stowing the weapons before he called Wesley; he
hadn't left the crew yet, and he shouldn't start to
act like he had.

Wesley took eight rings to answer. "Charles?"
Breathless. Wesley must have been asleep.

"We've finished patrol."

"Fifteen minutes?"

"Yeah. Or less." Gunn broke the connection and put the
'phone back in his pocket. "Good patrol, guys. See you
tomorrow morning."

"Where the hell you goin', man?" Eladio, sounding
amused, and not like he was expecting an answer. Gunn
just raised a hand, taking his leave, and walked out
of the weapons room without turning around.

"Haven't you heard? She's none of our business. Not
seeing as he never turns his cell phone off." Vince,
not amused at all.

So they'd been talking. Next thing they'd be tailing
him. Gunn shrugged, and carried on down the corridor.
Walking away. He'd already made this decision. He was
walking away.

* * * * *

Gunn woke in the night needing to go to the bathroom,
but when he opened the bedroom door, he saw
immediately that Angel was in the living-room, and he
closed the door again, almost by reflex. Angel had
been crouched down by the  bookcase next to the
window, must have been reading the titles in the light
that came through the open door of his room.

Gunn wondered if Angel had heard the opening and
closing of Wesley's door, wondered if he himself would
hear Angel returning to his room, so he would know
when it was safe to go out. Then he shook his head
sharply. Safe to go out? Oh, come on. He wouldn't be
much use to Wesley if he couldn't learn how to deal
with Angel. He didn't have to make friends with the
man - probably couldn't be done, anyway - just needed
to be able to reassure him, and he could start by
trying what Wesley did, being calm and patient and
straightforward.

He pulled on his trousers and T-shirt and opened the
door again. Angel was still by the bookcase; he turned
his head when Gunn closed the door, but turned back
after just a glance, his attention on the books like
he'd already forgotten that Gunn was there.

"Angel. Hello." Trying to sound friendly. Or better
than polite, anyway.

A grunt. Absent-minded rather than hostile. Probably.

While he was in the bathroom Gunn wondered if Angel
would still be in the living-room when he came back,
or whether he would have retreated to his room. Turned
out that Angel was still there, which had to be a good
sign, didn't it? Angel had taken some books out and
put them on the floor between himself and his room,
but he was still looking for something. What did
someone like that read? Had it changed, as he'd got
worse? And could you tell, from what he was reading,
whether the next day was going to be good or bad?

Gunn walked slowly across the room to within three
feet of Angel, with Angel's door to his right. Angel's
room looked to be at least twice the size of Wesley's.
Even standing right in front of the door, Gunn
couldn't see the bed, just an armchair and a lamp, and
pictures on the walls.

"Angel?"

Angel turned his whole body in one slow, smooth motion
as he looked around and up at Gunn. A cat. He'd moved
like a cat. And the stare, yes, that was as cold as a
cat's. Gunn fought to suppress a shiver as Angel got
to his feet with the same slow grace. Or was it the
same slow menace? No. He mustn't start thinking like
that. He'd be no use to Wesley if he started thinking
like that.

"I've been here a lot this week. I'll probably be here
even more from now on. All day, sometimes. Wesley says
you keep to your room anyway but it has to make a
difference to you how much I'm here. I don't want it
to be a problem. If there's anything you need me to
change, then you should tell me. You can tell me."

The stare. Unblinking. Was that Angel's answer, in
itself? Don't talk to me? You're not Wesley, so you
don't talk to me? How long should he wait, though,
before taking that as Angel's only answer.

Suddenly, with no warning: "Wesley smells different."
Gunn gasped, took an involuntary step backwards. Angel
didn't seem to notice, continued without any pause.
"He smells warmer. Lighter. He's happy. He can be
happy."

"Oh, can he?" As instinctive as his step backwards,
the need to challenge anyone who stated any claim on
his Wesley, like he'd never had those ideas about
being calm with Angel, being reassuring. "He's got
your -" The door had closed behind Angel, leaving Gunn
standing in the dark. Under his breath: "He's got your
permission, does he?"

Gunn went back to bed and lay staring up at the
ceiling. His heartbeat had nearly returned to normal
before it occurred to him that, again, Angel had not
meant it like that at all. Instead, he'd meant...
What? That Gunn being there wasn't a problem for him,
that he'd put up with anything if Wesley would be
happy? Or he might not even have meant it as an answer
to what Gunn had said, any more than he'd seemed to
the other times they'd spoken. Maybe that was simply
all he had to say to Gunn: that he'd noticed the
effect Gunn had on Wesley.

But what a way to say it! To claim you knew a man's
scent, knew it well enough to notice changes. And to
make that claim to the man's lover. That was truly a
crazy thing to do. No more crazy, though, than not
knowing if you'd been to fight a Lurgan demon in a
garden in Fairfax. Gunn couldn't say he hadn't been
warned. He should've been prepared for that and worse.
He shouldn't've reacted. Shouldn't've taken it
personally. Wesley would've been... No, probably not
angry with him, but he would have to have been
disappointed.

Gunn turned over onto his side, then slid his hand
slowly across the sheet, where the first thing it met
was Wesley's hand stretched out towards him, palm
upwards. Gunn laid his hand gently across Wesley's
palm and wrist and Wesley made a small sound of
agreement or recognition, and Gunn felt immediately
warmed and calmed, while knowing that Wesley was
deeply asleep, and the sound meant nothing at all.

Gunn dreamed about Angel, although afterwards he
couldn't remember anything except an unsettling
presence, and a sense of something left incomplete.
Soon after they woke in the morning, he said, "Wesley?
Has Angel given you any more idea yet how he feels
about the two of us? Has he... behaved differently
towards you since we got together?"

"Well, he asks about you. That's different. I've never
really known him to show interest in someone before."

"What does he ask?"

"Nothing very specific. He says, 'Tell me about
Charles,' and I start telling him my favourite things
about you. The censored version. Until he begs me to
stop."

"No, seriously."

"That is more or less what happens. He doesn't beg me
to stop, he's just not listening any more. And I try
to keep to the type of facts he's able to keep clear,
and try to build on what I've already told him and
find out what he does remember."

"Why do you think he's asking?"

"Because he knows you're important."

"You don't think he might get jealous? I dunno.
Threatened. Just weird."

"In what way?" Puzzled.

"You said he'd never think of you like that. But it's
got to make him look at you differently. Has he been
askin' about you and other men, me and other men?
Anything like he's started takin' notice?"

Wesley shrugged. "He's not like that." A sudden smile.
"And his tastes run to blondes, anyway. He wouldn't
look twice at either of us."

Somehow that bothered Gunn more than anything he'd
been imagining about Angel's attitude to Wesley.
Wesley could smile about it, but Gunn could see that
it did matter to Wesley, that Wesley had spent far too
much time thinking about Angel's tastes. "Did you ever
wish he would? Was he ever 'dashing' enough to be the
type of man you had a crush on?"

Another shrug. "Well, you can't help having some
reaction, can you? He's beautiful. So beautiful it's
frightening sometimes to look at him. But I can't have
a crush on someone who actively dislikes me, and..." A
sigh. "I made a very bad first impression in
Sunnydale. That didn't really change until he first
started teaching me to fight. After I got out of
hospital. I remember when he started talking as if I
was going to stay." A sigh. "But then there was so
much happening, I was too tired even to notice that he
was still beautiful. And then there were other things
to think about and we'd both seen too much. It would
have been a very stupid crush, anyway, even by my
standards."

"But you still think he's beautiful? 'So beautiful
it's frightening'?"

"You really don't? I thought everyone wanted him."

"OK, yeah, he's impressive. But I can't have a crush
on someone I can't talk to. I'd never want to be close
to him. I wanted to be close to you, wanted to talk
over everything with you, before I even realised what
I really wanted from you."

Sometime later, Wesley said thoughtfully, "That
probably was what I felt when I first knew that he
didn't actively want me to go away anymore. I mean,
that I wanted to be close to him. Or just wanted to be
important to him. For some things. That he would take
me into account sometimes. And then a month or so
later that just didn't matter, and I hadn't even
noticed the change. I'll never know what he thinks of
me and it doesn't matter. As long as I know how to
work with him."

Gunn thought that he knew more than Wesley in that
case, because he knew that Angel thought about what
made Wesley happy. So Wesley was important to Angel.
And Angel must know exactly what Wesley had done for
him, what would have happened to him without Wesley.
He should tell Wesley what he knew about Angel. How he
knew. Because whatever Wesley said it must still
matter enough that it would make him happy to hear it.

But he wasn't going to tell Wesley, couldn't bring
himself to - because he was jealous. Not stupidly
jealous, and he knew he'd get over it, once he'd seen
Angel a few more times, not in the middle of the
night, once he'd seen again how Wesley was calm, and
patient, and nothing more. But for now he didn't want
to give up any of his share of Wesley's attention, not
even to give Wesley good news.

* * * * *

Gunn wasn't patrolling that night, since it was a
Friday; Tuesdays and Fridays had been his nights off
since the beginning of the year. Wesley was going to
cook them a curry, and had been almost indignant when
Gunn had offered to get something to go.

"You shouldn't have to take care of the food every
time. Just because this is the only place we can meet.
I can get anything you want."

"I want a proper Friday-night, end-of-the-week curry.
This is for me. If you hate it, we'll negotiate about
'to-go' for next Friday." Wesley did agree, however,
that it was Gunn's turn to buy the beers.

Gunn left the base shortly before half past six, and
recognised within a minute that he was being tailed by
Vince, who had pulled out of a side-road a few blocks
from the base. Gunn decided to stick to his plan for
stopping to pick up beer; depending on where they both
parked, it could give him a chance to shake Vince, or
to confront him. As it turned out, he shook Vince, but
this was surely only the beginning.

Wesley was wearing a blue shirt with two buttons
undone, the same blue shirt that he'd worn on Tuesday,
and Angel was standing in the same position just
outside the kitchen, where he'd been watching Wesley
working on the pizza; but this time Angel had a beer,
and he smiled at Gunn and greeted him by name.

"Angel!" Gunn recovered quickly from his surprise, and
found he was genuinely pleased to see the man. "Hi."
Maybe Angel didn't remember anything of what had
happened during the night, not even the fact that Gunn
had got angry with him, and that he had a right to
resent Gunn for that.

Gunn still couldn't think of anything to say to Angel,
but this time he wasn't stressing about it. Angel
wasn't staring at him. They'd stand and drink their
beers and watch Wesley chopping and crushing, and if
they found a real reason to talk to one another, then
they'd talk.

"Shouldn't you be singing the National Anthem, Wes?
When you're cooking the British national dish? Show
the proper respect?"

"That's for Chicken Tikka Masala. For Lamb Pasanda I
just bow once in the direction of St. Paul's."

Angel gave a brief laugh then turned to Gunn. "Do you
think of it as all bangers and mash, fish and chips?
British food."

Gunn shrugged, doubting whether he'd ever thought
about it at all. "I guess."

Angel nodded. "I did too until I got to know Wes
properly. And I've never seen him go near any of that.
But when it comes to curries... I swear I've heard him
ordering them in his sleep. When did that happen, Wes?
I mean, the last time I was in England - Well, that
was a long time ago."

Wesley shrugged. "I don't know. When we got out of
India? Before I was born, probably. My mother's
parents were born in India. They had their favourite
Indian restaurant in London. They used to take me
there as a treat from school. I don't know when the
taste spread to the general population."

Gunn said, "You can get a curry here in L.A., can't
you? I thought there were plenty of places." And then
he remembered that Wesley hadn't eaten out in L.A.,
apart from their one Mexican meal.

"You can get a perfectly acceptable curry. There's a
place in Santa Monica I've been back to more than
once. But I haven't found anywhere where they really
seem to care, where they're doing anything new.
Nowhere that I'd bother to tell people about." He
shook his head slightly. "Not that there are many like
that back home, anyway. Most of the time when I order
in my sleep, I'm in Tabaq in Balham, before it went
upmarket." He sighed, stared into the middle distance,
and looked wistful.

Gunn and Angel looked at one another, raised their
eyebrows, and smiled. Gunn couldn't feel jealous of
Angel any more, couldn't connect this smiling man with
that freaky conversation in the middle of the night.
They'd be fine, the three of them. They'd make it
work.

Wesley had stopped looking wistful and had opened the
oven, releasing a wave of moist heat, and then taking
out a baking tray. "Is that eggplant?"

Wesley nodded. "Aubergine. I like the texture you get
with this. The crispness from the skins. Next to the
pulp." A sudden smile. "Like you and your perfect
Danish."

With a similar smile: "I like the sound of that." Then
Gunn turned to Angel. "What's your idea of the perfect
Danish? Or don't you have a sweet tooth either?"

But Angel was looking at some point on the wall
opposite, didn't seem to realise that Gunn was talking
to him. Gunn looked questioningly at Wesley, wondering
if he should ask again, but Wesley shook his head, and
then asked Gunn what they did about meals back at the
base. Gunn had just started to answer when Angel
drained his beer, put the bottle on the counter with a
thud, and stepped back.

"Another?" Wesley gestured towards the fridge.

Angel shook his head, frowning slightly, took another
step back, then turned and went to his room.

"Good night, Angel." Wesley's usual calm tone.

A pause after the door had closed, then Gunn said,
"I'm sorry."

Surprised: "What about?" Wesley took Angel's bottle
and put it in the box for recycling.

"I think I lost him. Askin' you about the eggplant.
Cut him out."

"No, he'd just reached his limit. There's not much you
can do, deliberately, to either lose him or keep him.
I never know what's going to catch his interest like
that."

"Has he been like that all day?"

"God, no. His limit's about half an hour these days.
He was very, very quiet today. I thought he'd
disappear when you were due to arrive. Not start a
real conversation."

"I guess he likes the smell of curry."

"Maybe. Or it might have been something to do with
you. Seeing you again after he'd been asking about
you. I suppose we'll find out when he's seen you a few
more times. When I've cooked a few more curries."


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