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

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Two 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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Gunn took two or three seconds to believe what his
eyes were telling him about Caritas, and then he
turned reflex-quick to check his exit up the stairs. A
set -up. It was a fucking set-up. Those couldn't be
people in there, they had to be vampires. He checked
the exit: still clear. OK. He had time to check the
layout. Figure the players. Maybe he'd come back with
Wesley and Angel and just torch the place. Or maybe
they'd need to shake it down first, find out if there
was more.

He went a couple of steps inside, to the left of the
door away from the vamp bouncer, keeping his back to
the wall. Scanned the room, trying to print it in his
mind like Angel would have with a vision, every detail
to carry back to Wesley and all the while he was held
like a bowstring, watching for the signal to be given
and the trap to be sprung on him.

Minutes passed, and his mind started refusing to be
impressed with the details of such a variety of demon
forms; not because of overload, but because it was
fixing more and more on the details that looked just
like a regular karaoke bar, which had to be the most
incredible part of the whole scene. This was either
the cleverest set-up ever, or the craziest. They'd got
it all exactly right, they'd got demons who could
really look like they were doing this. Like it wasn't
about... Yeah, round of applause for the gutsy lady.
"I will survive." No argument, with those teeth.

A ripple ran through the audience and Gunn inched back
towards the door - but no, they looked like they were
just settling deeper in, like now torching the place
would be the only way to get them to take their eyes
off the stage and the three youngsters who'd just
bounded onto it grinning like idiots. Well, the vamp
looked young, barely out of high-school, and unless
that tan was from a bottle, it must only be a few
months since he'd had a pulse. For the gecko-looking
thing and its chunky blue friend, Gunn could only make
guesses around human liquor laws and the body-language
that went with human adolescence.

Most of the audience recognised the song from the
first notes, started laughing and applauding, but
until the chorus Gunn only knew that he'd heard it
before. Walk Like a Man. It was, yeah, it was. Holy
shit. The moment when you know you've seen everything.
And they were good. Tight. The gecko, in the middle,
was right there with those is-that-a-girl high notes,
and the vamp and the blue one had their movements
perfectly synchronised, and perfectly judged between
tribute and parody. But wouldn't you have to practise
that in front of a mirror?

Gunn didn't laugh, didn't even smile. Too weird, way,
way too weird. He did raise his hands to applaud at
the end, but then got caught in a loop of "Look at
yourself, what the fuck you doing?" against "Showin'
I'm big enough to admit they earned it..." and by the
time he emerged ready to applaud (but in a cool,
seen-it-before way, like a talent scout), the
ultra-smooth MC demon was bringing on the next act.

OK, so he didn't know what this was. But it wasn't
about him. Not one of those vamps even cared there was
a human in the room. Forget stakes and holy water:
show 'em karaoke and maybe they didn't even want the
blood, couldn't even smell it. Who the hell knew this?
Was there a word about it anywhere in all of Wesley's
books?

Not much chance of using the karaoke thing in a fight,
but still a discovery that deserved a beer. Yeah, he'd
take a seat at the bar (that one close to the door,
clear line to the exit), and wait for bald, mysterious
Merl.

Merl was a demon. Well, of course he was. But until he
heard that voice and turned round, the thought that a
demon had called his cell phone had just not entered
Gunn's head. He'd had this picture of a little old guy
with sticking-out ears, ex-jockey, who now just smoked
and watched too many old movies. Cheaper tastes than
Gunn had expected, too: domestic beer, not something
spent ten years in a barrel. Though Merl himself
looked like he might've just crawled out of his own
barrel and he didn't like eye-contact (which suited
Gunn fine).

As for the Macuju demon that Gunn had been asking
about in Fairfax, Merl fed Gunn some disgusting story
about the West Coast market in demon crap - really,
the actual piles of shit - and this scooper he knew
who'd been following the Macuju around for years,
though New Mexico was just too far. Gunn didn't care
much if it was true or not. If the Macuju had left
then none of this mattered, and Merl was entitled to
keep his methods to himself; Gunn wouldn't trust
anyone who didn't know when to lie. As long as Merl
told enough of the truth when it mattered; and as long
as he was just as deadpan and plausible if anyone ever
asked him questions about Angel Investigations.

"What about a Prio Motu in town? You heard anything
about that?"

"Oh, the Prio. You missed him, too, man."

"Where'd he go?"

"Who knows? He was holed up by the Water and Power for
a few days. I heard of ten or more went in after him,
never came out. Stone killers, the Prios. Word was, he
was on some kind of war mission to do with a
prophecy."

"Friends of yours after him?"

"Friends of nobody. You got prophecies, you always got
vested interests, you get bounty-hunters. Way it
works. Why you looking for the Prio, anyway?"

"You need to know that?" A mild challenge.

"No. Right. So we're in business?"

"Could be. Tell me how to reach you, we'll set the
meter case-by-case. Got nothin' for you right now."

Merl nodded, didn't try to set a minimum rate, so Gunn
bought him another beer; he was taking his own beer
slowly, in no hurry to leave.

"You know those three who were up earlier? Doing 'Walk
Like a Man'?"

"Oh, yeah. The Three Musketeers." Without enthusiasm.

"They in here a lot?"

"Seems like it. Since about a year ago."

"Were they always that tight? Or'd they treat this as
their practice room?"

Slowly: "Well... None of them was anything special
when they used to sing on their own. Then they were
suddenly like 'an act'. Must've taken some serious
time out of their surfing."

"They surf?" Where, for God's sake? When must be well
after dark.

A shrug. "Matt, anyway. Family's got this beach house.
Sounds like he lives there. And Piriti and Grouw, most
weekends. Can't see them getting out to the water, can
you? Not during the day, anyway."

Matt wasn't a vampire? Unless Gunn was making all the
wrong assumptions about which one was Matt, and why
Piriti and Grouw couldn't use the beach during the
day. "His family's OK with all this?"

"Wouldn't be if they knew. Or maybe they would if they
knew Piriti and Grouw are the only reason he goes to
any of his classes. They're more scared of him having
to get a job than he is."

Gunn laughed. "What about Piriti and Grouw? They got
family in town? And which one's which? Who was the one
doin' most of the singing?"

"That's Piriti. Yeah, he's got family in town. Very
traditional. They think Piriti and his brother are out
right now digging their cave... castle thing, fancy
enough to make a really big female want to lay her
eggs in it." So Piriti was the gecko. Made sense. He
looked the eggy type.

"Where's his brother?" Gunn couldn't see couldn't see
another gecko demon in the room.

"Sleeping? Hunting? Sometimes he digs. Some weekends
they all dig. They like the digging and looking for
the special rocks. Just don't want the eggs."

"And Grouw's family?" The chunky blue demon. Kind of
had the look of some big piece of furniture. A
dresser, maybe. Been given a couple of coats of cheap
paint and thrown down the stairs a few times.

"They don't feature. Except he's got a sister.
Half-sister. Older. Works security in one of those,
ah, correctional dimensions. Come here with them a
couple of times. Didn't sing. Family big with you?"

Gunn's turn to shrug. "It's a place to start. You see
many vampires in here?"

"Some. Few groups come in - talk like they're
childe-packs. Always kind of rowdy, don't fit in well.
Or the odd lone bloodsucker passing through town,
wants to see for himself. Like I said, they don't fit
in."

In that case, there were no vampires in the bar, not
one, just a lot of people who'd somehow decided they
liked to hang out with demons. Though he shouldn't say
"just", because that idea was actually much stranger
than the idea about vampires and karaoke. The karaoke
thing couldn't really make any difference to anyone,
but all these people knowing about demons, acting
almost like they were friends with demons... That was
serious. It was real. Not something you'd mark by
going and ordering a beer. Something you'd have to go
off and think about, maybe for days.

* * * * *

At first Wesley thought that Caritas was Gunn's idea
of a joke, and the more Gunn tried to convince him
with details, the more Wesley laughed and shook his
head.

"A Chachaspe demon in the same room as a Hull demon?
They've been fighting over territory, in at least
three different dimensions, since they first worked
out which way round to hold a pointed stick. Your
Grouw, the big blue one, he's a Hull demon. When he
meets a Chachaspe demon like Piriti, all he sees is
the makings of a hard-wearing set of gecko-skin boots
and gauntlets."

"What, so I picked a bunch of demons at random from
your books? Looked around for the stupidest idea for
stickin' 'em together? Wish I had that kind of time on
my hands. And what d'you think I did tonight, if it
wasn't what I'm sayin'?"

Wesley didn't reply immediately, looked slightly wary
and very puzzled. "Well, I thought you must have met
this Merl person in an ordinary karaoke bar, but..."
Shaking his head slowly. "I don't see how you could
have seen what you thought you saw. It has to be
something else."

"Then come along tomorrow night and work it out for
me. You tell me it's a year-round Halloween party,
then I'll just guess that Merl's really two little old
guys stacked on top of each other. But hey, it's a
free country. Can't argue with the fact that the
little old guy on the top knew about Kamal."

* * * * *

"This is astonishing."

"Not rubber suits, then."

"There has to be... I don't know. How do you impose 'A
benevolent disposition, at least to the level of
sainthood' as a door policy?"

"Not too well, if I got in. Couldn't be the karaoke?
Acts like some sort of spell on them?"

"Well, it's having the opposite effect on me. I don't
know. This is astonishing."

"So how d'we figure it out? We do want to figure it
out, don't we?"

"I suppose we ask. But that might be the most
dangerous thing to do. Maybe it all works on everyone
already knowing the rules. What do they do to
intruders?"

"Yeah, well, we're the only ones gawpin', far's I can
see."

Clear alarm on Wesley's face, and then he turned his
back to the room, tilting his head like that would
hide him even further. "You're right. We need to blend
in."

Gunn laughed. "Maybe not tonight, Wes. You look like
you'll need a week to scrape all the gawp off your
face. You know, we might get away without asking. They
have to talk about the rules here sometimes. Like that
couple on a date. If it was her first time here, she'd
have to say something like 'Oh, yeah, that must be one
of those spray things you told me about. Where they
pump out the sedative.' " He shrugged. "Hour or so,
few times a week. Merl hears enough here, should work
for me."

* * * * *

Gunn and Angel had been working slowly but steadily
through the case files and were now back to about four
months before Wesley arrived. On Saturday night, after
training and dinner, they tackled the next three files
from the stack while Wesley settled down with a book.

"Huh. Wolfram and Hart. Small world." Gunn hadn't
looked at the files since he'd first made his list of
questions.

"What's that?"

Gunn pushed the file across the table to Angel.
"There's a note here at the end. A question. 'Wolfram
and Hart again?' That's a law firm that's doin'
charity work for a friend of mine who runs a homeless
shelter. Anne. Wes's met her. D'you know what they had
to do with this case?"

Angel stared at the sheet, frowning, then shook his
head. "That's Doyle's writing. I can't... Or is...? A
law firm... No, I don't know. Wes?"

Without looking up from his book: "I don't know,
either. You've never mentioned any law firm to me."

Gunn was looking through all of the earlier files. "He
said 'again'. Maybe it'll come back to you if we can
find them in another case." But there was no other
reference. Gunn shrugged. "Well... it's a large firm,
from what Anne says. Must be large enough to make the
world seem small."

When they had finished with the three cases, Angel sat
in his armchair and took up his own book, and Gunn
plugged the headphones into the computer and threw
himself into the middle of an interstellar war.

"Charles! Get the pad from the desk!"

Gunn tore the headphones off as he was launching
himself out of his chair. How long had he been
playing? As long as an hour? Behind him he heard a
long, pleading cry of pain, then harsh panting that
was broken almost immediately by another cry, shorter
this time but raw, shocked, and then panting again,
much harsher, like Angel's throat was tearing itself
apart.

"Oh, fuck. Fuck. Oh, fuck." Wesley wasn't surprised or
panicking, more dismayed and resigned. "Not the pad.
Get the net. And the pikes." Wesley's worst-case
procedure for controlling Angel when a vision made him
violent; when Gunn had insisted on a briefing the
previous Sunday, he hadn't imagined they'd be putting
it into practice so soon.

The net was large, at least twelve feet across,
weighted all around the edges with lead crucifixes.
Gunn flung it over his shoulder and grabbed two
seven-foot pikes from the weapons cabinet. He turned
back to the centre of the room to see Angel, twisted
sideways across the arm of the chair, go suddenly limp
and then roll slowly out of the chair to fall heavily
on the floor. Wesley had just started pushing the
couch out of the way, towards the kitchen; they had to
clear the area around Angel before they could use the
net. Wesley had already moved the coffee table against
the far wall, so Gunn put the pikes down and dealt
with the armchair, hauling it right across the room
and using it to block the path between the dining
table and the window.

Gunn could hear that the next state was starting - the
"reverberation phase", Wesley had called it. Angel was
muttering, the sounds becoming less like growls and
more like words with each breath, and he was shifting
against the floor, slow movements with the same rhythm
as his voice. Gunn hadn't seen Angel's face since the
vision had started, but he thought he would have known
just from the tone in the voice that there was a
creature in the room now that would take deep pleasure
in killing him.

"Good. That's good." Wesley had finished pushing the
couch out of the way and was coming over to Gunn,
reaching out to Gunn's shoulder for one of the
double-sized crucifixes that marked the corners of the
net. Gunn nodded, then took the crucifix for the other
corner, and they quickly unfolded the net and draped
it out. Keeping such a large net from getting caught
or tangled took concentration, and while they were
handling it Gunn saw Angel only in his peripheral
vision, as the restless shape that had to be centred
under the net.

By the time they had the net laid properly, Angel's
words had become clear enough that Wesley could
understand them; Gunn could see the change in the
direction of Wesley's attention. "Fetch my pike for
me? I need to listen." Gunn nodded, but Wesley was
already turning away, moving back along the edge of
the net.

Wesley had said, describing this stage, "It's as if
he's trying to press himself into the floor,
especially his head and his hands." He'd never heard
of any other vampire doing anything like it, could
only guess that it was a memory of being buried. From
the description, Gunn had imagined some frantic
scrabbling, a dog grubbing for a bone, imagined
himself having to hide from Wesley his disgust at the
sight of Angel writhing helplessly on the ground.
Instead, Wesley should have said, "He looks like the
king of the panthers, stretching himself after the
best kill of the year." Or: "He looks like the
ground's in love with him, like he knows it worships
every inch of his body. Like they're getting ready to
fuck for days."

Wesley had told Gunn that the vampire might get an
erection and Gunn had imagined that as another part of
the disgusting helplessness. But instead it made the
vampire seem more powerful, more frightening. It
wasn't aware of the net, of the two humans standing
over it. Even if its eyes had been open, Gunn knew
that it wouldn't have seen them. There was nothing in
its world except a vision of someone in terror, and
its own rich pleasure in that terror.

Gunn wanted to kill it. Or wanted to leap forward and
drag Wesley away to safely. Wanted to do both, felt
fierce and urgent for both. But he wouldn't. He
couldn't. Because someone was in danger, and the
vampire held the only hope of rescue. Gunn had to let
Wesley stay where he was, down on one knee listening,
at the edge of the net but much too near. All he could
do was lean in to place the pike on the floor by
Wesley's hand, then stand ready with his own weapon
waiting for the next stage, determined above
everything to keep Wesley safe.

"It's our world. It's everywhere. It's a nectar.
Drink. Hollywood and Wilcox. Close enough to... Drink.
Needs you. She's so scared!" On a growl like triumph,
back arching off the floor. "So scared. And they're
just... They're nothing, they don't know the first...
Imagine if that was... An alley. She's screaming in an
alley. Yes. Ah, yes. There's always more. But they
don't know." Laughter, quiet, admiring . "They don't
know she's for the beast! And she'll think... She'll
think she deserves the beast. Could do more with her
but... Yes, it's rich. Feel it. Hollywood and Wilcox.
Singing. Close. In our world. Hollywood and Wilcox.
Our world. You know." The voice and movements had
become slower and slower, like the vampire was falling
asleep.

Without taking his eyes off the vampire's face, Wesley
took a grip on the pike and got to his feet. "Get
ready, Charles. As soon as he's standing, we drive him
towards the room. Don't think twice about injuring
him. He's got plenty of time to heal."

The vampire was still for maybe five seconds, then it
tensed like it was listening for something, opened its
eyes, saw them both, and then in an instant was on its
feet and launching itself, snarling, straight at
Wesley. The net probably saved Wesley's life. If the
vampire had been able to keep that speed, if it had
its hands free to seize Wesley... It was fired by raw
appetite in those moments, would have ignored any
injury, and Wesley would have been down. But the net
slowed it down and got in its way and distracted it,
and when Gunn and Wesley moved in with the pikes, it
felt the stab-wounds enough to want to avoid them. It
backed away, snarling more fiercely than ever, trying
to get out of the net but just stumbling on it,
getting more tangled, confused, and angry. After they
got it shut away it set up a howl of outrage and threw
itself against the door over and over. They could hear
the howling even out in the street.


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