[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Two 2/12 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Two 2/12

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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Gunn spent most of Wednesday and Thursday reading
about his three neighbourhoods, both online and at the
library, looking for stories that might turn out to be
about demons, that would get him started with asking
people about their neighbourhood weirdness. He was
concentrating on El Segundo for now, hoping to be
ready to hit the ground before the end of the week.

On Wednesday evening they had their training later
than usual because Gunn had his first meeting with one
of the clients, in a bar a few miles from the client's
home. Mostly he just let the man talk, because the guy
clearly enjoyed talking about the Foa demon: how he'd
realised that something very strange was going on with
his new neighbour, how the police refused to see
anything, even when they were staring right at the
spines and the scales and everything, and how he'd
found Angel Investigations from the Yellow Pages.

"I tell you, you'd save people like me a lot of time
if you'd get a box entry, say something like, 'You've
tried the rest, now try the only outfit in town that
isn't a bunch of creepy deluded freaks.' OK, I wasn't
sure right off, because they're both kind of...
intense, you know? But then the way they listened,
they weren't just waiting for what they wanted to
hear. And the boss did a drawing with me - he started
out as a police artist, right? - and the English guy
found them right away in his books, said they do this,
they were starting a colony in the area. Police hadn't
seen them 'cos when you get up close - like when they
open the door to you - they have this way of making
you see them as normal. Probably wouldn't kill me just
for the sake of it, but they weren't gonna be good
neighbours, not once they'd all got dug in."

"Boy. So what happened?"

"The English guy did this... I guess it was a spell on
the house, to make it so people could see them." A
smirk. "And the boss paid them a visit. That was
cool."

"He killed them?"

A shrug. "Said he got them to leave. Made sure they'd
never come back. Worth every cent. Wish I could tell
my other neighbours what I saved them from, though. My
wife even doesn't know half of it. That's the main
thing you guys gotta get past, you ask me - the fact
that it all sounds so crazy."

The man was right, of course. There were any number of
nuts out there who set themselves up as "vampire
hunters", who could see the signs of a demon
apocalypse in every extra-red sunset or every howling
dog. The little freaks had kept on finding Gunn and
the crew, and the way they could talk and talk... All
thought they were the centre of the world, acted like
the crew might not even be good enough to join their
team, might not be ready to hear "the great truth".
And nearly every one had had a business card. Where
could you advertise, what could you say, to show sane
people that Angel Investigations was the one number
that they needed to call?

* * * * *

Early on Thursday evening, Angel got a vision. When it
hit, Angel was in his room, Wesley was on the couch
with the newspaper and a mug of tea, and Gunn was at
the computer checking out the websites for some of
their competitors.

"Oh, damn!"

Gunn turned his head, and found that Wesley had thrown
the paper aside and was running towards Angel's room.
Gunn leapt to his feet, took a step in the same
direction as Wesley. "Wesley, what's -" Angel cried
out, and there was a loud thud, and more cries, all
strangled, agonised, and urgent. Wesley flung the door
open, then grabbed a plant spray from the shelf
outside the door, and ran in. Gunn was just a few
steps behind him.

Angel was on the floor between the bed and the open
wardrobe. Now Gunn could hear a dull banging in time
with the cries, and a slower, dragging noise.

"Push the bed out of the way." Wesley was pushing at
the bed with his thigh, but keeping his gaze fixed on
Angel. He was keeping his distance, too, and he was
holding the spray up like a weapon. Gunn hauled on the
heavy iron frame of the bed, and moved the bed by two
or three feet. "That's fine. That's enough." The cries
had stopped, though Angel was breathing heavily,
almost panting, and the sounds of movement were much
slower and more deliberate; Angel must be trying to
get to his feet, and now Wesley had put the spray down
and was moving in to steady Angel, and guide him to
the edge of the bed to sit down.

"Wesley? Was this a vision? Is it over?"

"It's over. He'll show us, any moment now. He'll tell
us."

And Angel was starting to mutter, seeming to shake the
words out as he slammed the heel of his hand over and
over against his forehead. "Protect. Champion.
Tribunal. Bounty. Help. Protect. More. Champion."

"Charles. Could you get a pad and a pencil from the
bottom drawer of my desk?"

The bottom drawer held a stack of drawing pads and a
box full of sharpened pencils. Gunn was holding the
pad and pencil out to Wesley when Angel snatched them
from him and immediately started drawing on the cover
of the pad.

"A clean sheet, Angel. Use a clean sheet." Wesley
leaned in to turn over the page, and Angel carried
right on drawing. He was still muttering, the same
jumble of six or seven words, but from time to time
his head would jerk violently to the side, like he was
trying to escape from something, and each time he
would give the same startled moan.

"Do you understand what he's saying?"

Wesley shook his head. "I've given up trying to
understand what he says at this stage. You can never
see how it relates to the vision, and it's always too
vague to help us. And he doesn't know what he's
saying, can't comment on it afterwards, whereas he
does know what he's drawing, can recall the visions
exactly. If we're lucky he'll be able to talk in the
next stage, tell us things he hasn't drawn, give us
clues about where and when."

They were standing one on either side of Angel, so
they could see what he was drawing: a demon with
large, curving horns, and with tusks that looked like
they could rip through a man's thigh. The demon in the
drawing was snarling straight at them, about to leap
into the attack. Angel tore the sheet off, thrust it
at Wesley, then started another drawing.

"D'you know what it is? He's exaggeratin', right? And
tell me this next drawing's gonna show us how to kill
it." Angel really could draw. The client Gunn had met
the night before had asked if Angel used to be a
police artist, and yeah Angel was getting in all the
details that'd get you to recognise the demon if you
saw it, but the drawing was better than that: it had
life to it, enough to make Gunn want to reach for an
axe right there, because Angel had brought the threat
that close to home.

Wesley said slowly, "I think it's a mountain dweller,
from those tusks and horns and the way the hair grows.
Crawford would be the place to start looking." Wesley
left the room but came back quickly with a thick book,
then sat in Angel's chair, switched on the reading
light, and started turning pages like he was on a
tight, urgent search-pattern.

"Wes? Is he OK like this? Wha'do I do if he... I
dunno."

"What's he drawing?"

"Same demon, 's all. Head's turned, looks like it's
lunging. God, he's - You should see the claws."

"If he tears the page out, take it from him. It
doesn't sound as if I need to see it, not for the
identification." Wesley hadn't looked up from the
book. "He's in the stage now where he has to show us
what he saw, he can't help himself. That will ease
off, he'll slowly give up drawing. After that..."
Wesley shook his head. "It depends." A brief glance at
Angel. "I think we'll be lucky this time: he'll be fit
to talk to us."

"You're sure he won't turn violent?"

Another shake of the head. "It would have started
during the vision. We'd be backed against the door
right now, holding him off with the holy water."

The plant spray, Wesley must mean. It must be full of
holy water. Gunn took a quick look at the bottle,
which was lying on its side at the foot of the bed.
Wesley might have taken off those pictures of plants
and bugs, painted a cross on it or something. If Gunn
was a vampire he'd take that thing as an insult, get
even madder. As Angel kept on drawing and shuddering
and Wesley kept on turning pages, Gunn thought about
the problem of the holy water, how to give it style.

"It's a Prio Motu." Wesley's voice was quiet, like he
was speaking to himself. "Oh. Bugger. Angel, I hope
you'll be fit to do more than talk."

"What's a Prio Motu? So it's as bad as it looks?"

"It's Himalayan, and ferocious, and almost
unstoppable. Think grizzly bear with road-rage."

"Ouch. So no clues in that book about how to kill it,
either?"

"Not really." Wesley handed the book to Gunn, then
walked past him to sit on the bed next to Angel.

"This is all about their wars and history and stuff.
Jeez, they like to fight! Hey, maybe we're supposed to
slow him down by knowing all the dates. 'What about
the time the Heebie-Jeebies and the Tutti-Fruttis
fought for five days straight over a stray goat? Man,
was that the makin' of General Shiny-Horns, or what?'
"

Wesley laughed, then: "I think he's stopping." A
pause. "Angel? Angel, can you talk to me?"

The muttering and the drawing were definitely becoming
slower. Suddenly they stopped altogether, and Angel
slumped forward. The pencil fell to the floor and
bounced once, and then the room seemed to freeze into
silence, like everything inside it was tense with
waiting, even the air.

Angel stirred from the slump after just a few seconds,
or so Gunn guessed from the time after he had started
counting his own heartbeats. He slowly raised his head
to look at Gunn, stared at him, frowning, then turned
quickly to Wesley when Wesley spoke his name.

"There's a big demon. Horns. Big horns. Fangs. Fierce.
Really angry. Set... Set..." Angel was moving his hand
in emphasis or frustration or both. "Won't give up."

"I think it's a Prio Motu. Is this what you saw?
Charles, could you...?" Gunn was already holding the
book out to Angel.

As soon as Angel saw the picture he leapt to his feet
and grabbed the book. "Where is it? How do we find
it?"

"That's the big question. Let's try to answer it with
the other books, next door."

Gunn led the way to the living room, Wesley brought
the pad and pencil with him, and they all sat at the
dining table. "So you didn't recognise the place?"

"Tunnels. All tunnels."

"Tunnels that you didn't recognise. Well, that narrows
it down. What were the tunnels like? Were they damp?
Did they have a smell?"

At first Wesley was the one asking the questions and
making the suggestions, but Gunn soon joined in. The
tunnels were made of concrete, not brick. They were
square, not round. Dry. Clean. Well-lit. No graffiti.
No garbage. Stairways with handrails, and the
handrails weren't rusted. Racks of pipes on the
ceilings. Smell might be oil. And a low but powerful
throbbing sound. Something industrial, obviously, but
where? Angel filled sheet after sheet with drawings of
details, and finally there was a drawing that gave an
impression that the tunnels were deep, really deep,
and that started Gunn thinking in a new direction.

"Angel, do you know the tunnels underneath Boyle
Heights, near the DWP?" Angel shook his head. "We
cleaned a nest of vamps out of there a year ago. I
think it all fits. We should go check it out."

Wesley took a sword, Gunn took his axe, and Angel took
a sword and a mace. Gunn drove while Wesley sat in the
back with Angel and asked more questions, trying to
find out who they had been sent to save and how the
Prio Motu was likely to fight. Angel thought he had
seen someone behind the demon, running away, but not
running properly, instead moving strangely, as if
already injured.

Angel knew immediately that they'd come to the right
place. But it was a large place, and almost every
corridor and stairway looked just like the ones in the
vision. They headed downwards, keeping as quiet as
possible, listening hard for sounds of growling, or
sobbing - or anything. They had reached the fourth
level down when Angel suddenly stopped, pointed
upwards, and led the way back up the stairs. By the
second level, Gunn could hear the noises too: running
footsteps, panicked breathing, and a low, menacing
snarl. The demon must be dragging his victim towards
the stairway.

When there was only one set of stairs between them and
the demon, the three of them paused and looked at one
another, an instinctive sharing of courage that Gunn
had seen over and over again with his crew. Gunn was
about to take that crucial, bracing breath when he got
a better idea, shook his head vehemently, pointed to
the corridor around the corner from the landing, and
immediately headed towards it, gesturing with his head
for Angel and Wesley to follow.

He stopped them just past the line of sight to the
stairway and whispered, "Ambush."

The others nodded and Wesley leaned in close to Gunn
and whispered, "Angel and I will go for the Prio Motu,
get it away from the stairs or drive it down. You get
the victim up the stairs and out to somewhere safe."
Gunn nodded, saw Angel do the same, and then they took
up positions with a view of the stairway and waited as
the sounds came quickly towards them.

The victim was a pregnant woman, and the sight of
that, of her holding her belly, being pulled down into
the earth by a monster... This was sick, the universe
was sick, to let this happen. Gunn pushed at Angel's
back to get him to start the charge, but Angel didn't
move until the demon was almost at the landing - and
those moments of waiting were long enough for Gunn to
scare himself with the idea that Angel might have lost
his focus, forgotten everything about why they needed
to fight.

The woman screamed when she saw them, and Gunn had to
stand and see her terrified, had to wait for Angel and
Wesley to force the monster far enough away from her
before he could get in and prove to her that she was
safe now, it was over. He tried to help her up the
stairs but she was struggling so hard, almost like she
was fighting him, and nothing he said seemed to be
getting through - she'd even started sobbing, and her
voice was raw as she screamed at him.

"You bastards. Oh, God, you sick, sick bastards. My
baby. My baby. Oh, no, please. Not an axe. Not my
baby. Kamal, help me. Help my baby. Don't let them do
that to my baby. Help me."

Gunn dropped the axe. "I'm not going to hurt you.
We're not part of this, we're nothing to do with that
thing. We were sent here to save you from it. You're
safe now."

A second of frozen disbelief, then: "Oh, God! How
stupid do you think I am? How stupid are you? You're
killing my one protector and you're telling me I'm
safe?"

Gunn didn't know how long his own stunned silence
lasted. "You're saying that demon was protecting you.
He never hurt you? He wasn't bringing you here to -"

"Like you didn't know that! Waiting here with your -"

Gunn leapt down the stairs and ran towards the sounds
of battle. "Stop! Stop! Wesley, stop! Angel! The Prio
Motu wasn't hurting her. It wasn't what we thought.
She says he was protecting her. You have to stop.
Angel, you have to stop! We weren't sent here to fight
it."

* * * * *

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