[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Two 7/12 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Two 7/12

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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They couldn't find any sign of any frightened woman in
any alley near Hollywood and Wilcox. There was one
alley they couldn't check properly, but that couldn't
be the alley for the woman, not with all the cops and
with the tape and the crowd. Unless... Was she
screaming because of those two poor bastards still
pasted to the wall behind the dumpster? Had a demon
done that? (And if not a demon, then what the hell
else?) Were those two supposed to kill the demon, but
they'd failed and now it would be after her? In this
alley, after the bodies and cops and crowds had gone?
Or somewhere near? The vampire had seen her screaming,
had said Hollywood and Wilcox. Wesley said the vampire
couldn't lie, not in that stage. So they must be in
the right place, just a couple of hours early.

Or a couple of hours late. Why was "she" more
important than those two crushed by the dumpster? Why
weren't they worth a vision? Wesley didn't know,
except he'd never thought the powers could see
everything. Maybe they didn't know the men might fail.
"If you think about the timing, Angel probably got the
vision exactly at the time the men were killed. They
didn't know until then that she needed help."

They moved the truck to where they'd be able to see
when the alley was clear again, then did another
search on foot of all of the other alleys, this time
looking for any sign of a demon's tracks, any hole
where it might be living. There was nothing, so they
went back to the truck to drink coffee and wait.

"Wes, how the hell d'you ever get through one of these
on your own? I know you told me he was one of the
worst, but he was enjoying it so much, every part of
him. It was... And how can you see that and then worry
about anything in how you treat him? I -" Shaking his
head, over and over. "No, not 'him'. It's a thing.
Even thinkin' of it with a name, I'm not gonna give it
even that much. It should spend every second it knows
who you are down on its knees, every fucking second
trying to understand why you don't kill it!"

Wesley sighed and dragged his hand over his forehead.
"You'll probably see some of that tomorrow. And you'll
probably get bored with it just as quickly as I do."

"But how? How did you control that thing on your own?"

"It's much easier if he's in his room when the vision
hits. The first time it happened we were still in the
old building. There wasn't a lock on his door, even if
I'd thought of that. I had no idea what he was likely
to do."

"So wha'd'you do?"

"I ran out of the building before I even found out
that he speaks when he's on the floor. Spent the night
in a hotel, praying that he'd have changed back by the
morning. I think he must have changed back in just a
few hours. The damage to him from the visions was so
slight in those days, we had no idea. And he'd spent
most of the night, after he'd changed back, convinced
that Angelus must have killed me and dumped the body
in the sewers. So we made him a room we could lock.
And it wasn't until he'd had another three visions -
normal visions - that I could persuade him to come out
of his room and give me some more training." A shrug.
"There are many reasons why he usually spends most of
his time in his room."

"And it'll be gone by morning?"

"I think so."

"How d'you tell, then? I'm not lettin' you open the
door on that thing."

"I talk to him. There probably was a time when Angelus
could have pretended to be Angel, but not any more.
They're both too fractured now."

After another round of the alleys, over a second
coffee as bad as the first, Gunn said, "I want us to
chain him up. I don't wanna go through that again."
Saying "him" as a way of meeting Wesley partway. An
inch, maybe, compared with the mile he was asking from
Wesley, but it was he could spare.

"What do you mean, chain him up? You can't mean all
the time. Charles, this was so far from being
representative."

"And how 'representative' was the time when he got to
hit you? The last time I heard him tryin' to break
through that door." Just a month ago, almost exactly.
"He only has to get through once. Have us make one
mistake. We should keep him in chains. Chain him to
the floor or into his bed and gag him when we have to
leave him like this - or find some way to live with
knowing that we killed the poor bastard who'll one day
go in to try to shut him up." Gunn kept talking even
as he watched Wesley turn his face hard away, as he
watched Wesley flinching. He knew he was right. And it
was for Wesley's sake more than anything else that he
was right.

A long silence and then Wesley turned his head back
slightly, not enough for Gunn to see his expression.
Very quietly, to the floor of the truck: "Not all the
time. Please. I couldn't live like that. It would turn
me into... I couldn't live like that."

Just as quietly, not a challenge: "How could you
live?"

Wesley sighed, then turned his whole body towards
Gunn. "When he's on the floor. Before the net or
instead of the net. We'd have time. We could get the
gag in place around his neck, then fit it once we'd
got him fixed to the bed-frame. After that phase was
over and he'd stopped talking."

Gunn nodded, relieved and grateful. "It'll be easier,
Wes, on all of us. Might not even need to use the
pikes any more."

"No. Maybe. But we were -" Another sigh. "I'll tell
him tomorrow. I have to explain to him before we start
getting any of the equipment."

Gunn knew that Wesley didn't need to be reassured
about Angel's reaction - Angel would agree instantly,
like he had about the drive-in. Wesley wanted to tell
Angel because he needed to know he was being fair to
his vampire. Gunn should probably be thinking now that
Wesley was a fool. Fooling himself, in the worst way.
Instead Gunn was thinking that he admired Wesley more
than ever: for his self-control, how he insisted
through everything that he would stay the person he
wanted to be, how he tested every idea against that.
Gunn didn't understand why it was so important to
Wesley, but then he didn't need to understand.  Being
in love with Wesley was so much about being in love
with all that was different about Wesley.

The cops left around two a.m., and after three it felt
like they were the only people within four blocks who
were awake, especially if you made that awake and
sober. They gave up at seven when the groups of
clubbers started to emerge, blinking, into the new
light of a Sunday morning; and Gunn easily persuaded
Wesley to take in breakfast on the way home, a proper
breakfast with a view of the ocean. They were both too
tired to worry much about the vision. Maybe the powers
had got it wrong all along, and "she" had saved
herself by just deciding to walk a different route.
There probably was a demon in the area, but there had
to be a smarter way of dealing with it than another
eight hours of stake-out.

The apartment was quiet. No sound at all from the
vampire's room.

"You don't have to do this now." Gunn put his hand on
Wesley's arm - just barely touching, when what he
wanted to do was force himself between Wesley and the
locked door. "He can't've had less sleep than you. I
were you, I'd say he can wait."

Wesley shook his head and raised his hand ready to
knock on the door. "If he's heard that we're back and
then we don't let him out, then he'll think the worst
about what Angelus must have done. It's less work just
to get it over with." He knocked three times, quietly:
one roommate checking on another. "Angel? Are you
awake? Should I come in?"

A sound like something taken by surprise, then,
uncertain: "Wesley?"

"We're back, Angel. Should I come in? Do you need
anything?"

Slowly: "Wesley, I - Can you tell me? I - I don't know
what he did."

Wesley nodded to Gunn. "He's changed back." He reached
for the key and put it in the lock. "Come in if you
like but let me deal with him. At least until we see
how he's reacting to you."

Angel was on the other side of the room, must have
been huddled in the corner between the wall and the
far side of the bed; Gunn had heard him scramble to
his feet when Wesley opened the door. He looked a
wreck, hair matted with sweat, chest and stomach
streaked with blood. He was wearing the same cut and
bloody shirt, now hanging open - maybe torn open.
Trousers torn open too, enough for Gunn to see a
triangle of white, to see that Angel wore Y-fronts,
the same as Wesley. Semen as well as blood was smeared
on the cold skin, Gunn would bet his life.

Wesley had walked straight over the heaped net, showed
no hesitation about approaching Angel. Gunn kicked the
net out of the way while keeping his eyes on the
vampire, and then stood ready just inside the door.

"Wesley, you -" Angel raised his hand, looked like he
wanted to step forward. "He didn't hurt you. He
didn't? Your friend -" Angel swallowed, gave a jerk of
the head in Gunn's direction, definitely not looking
at Gunn. "He didn't hurt your friend?"

"No, Angel, he didn't hurt us. We were ready for him."
And at that Angel fell back against the wall, then
slid down it, slumped so low in his corner that Gunn
could only see the top of his bent head. Wesley knelt
down next to Angel and leant forward briefly to touch
his shoulder and Gunn had to force himself to stay by
the door and let it happen. How could Wesley even want
to be near him in that state? Wesley shouldn't want
to, he shouldn't. Part of Gunn - a large part - was
thinking of Angel as "it" now, wanting to take his
name away. It was dangerous, it was just too
dangerous, to let yourself think of that thing as a
person. But he'd fall back into that habit, he could
see it, the first time Angel made a joke with Wesley.

"What did he do?" Angel had raised his head, was
searching Wesley's face. Wesley sat back, propped his
elbow on the bed, and calmly told Angel how the vision
had arrived, what the vampire had said, and how he and
Gunn had spent the night. Angel knew nothing at all
about the vision, was asking Wesley what the demon had
looked like in the vision, if the dumpster had
appeared in it; and he couldn't accept that Wesley
didn't know what had pushed the dumpster, or that
there'd been no rescue, no sign even of who the vision
wanted them to rescue.

Wesley soon gave up trying to tell Angel about the
theories he and Gunn had formed during the night.
"We'll take you there, tonight, if you like. So you
can see for yourself what happened." Wesley stood up.
"Charles and I are going to get a few hours sleep.
We'll be finished with the bathroom in a few minutes
if you want to have a shower. Just throw that shirt
away."

They didn't take Angel to the alley that night,
because Angel wasn't in a state to be taken to the
alley, not even when he'd had a whole day to recover.
He did manage to shower himself, they heard him when
they were getting ready to sleep, but very early in
the process of dressing himself he lost track of what
he was doing, and for the rest of the day he was far
out of reach. When Wesley went in to check on Angel
early in the afternoon, he found Angel wearing only a
coat, but with all his clothes emptied out of the
wardrobe and drawers onto the bed. Angel was picking
through the clothes, Wesley said, not like he was
looking for something, but like he was sorting them
into groups. It was hard to tell if he knew Wesley; he
didn't seem puzzled to see Wesley in his room, but his
responses to Wesley's questions were so off-track he
might have been seeing and hearing Wesley as someone
else entirely.

Later in the afternoon he began talking to himself,
always quietly and never for long at a time, but
Wesley and Gunn both got very distracted by waiting to
see what tone his voice would have next; mostly the
tone was anxious, even openly frightened, but
sometimes it was cool, sometimes casual, and sometimes
affectionate.

They talked for a while of going back to the alley
without Angel, not wanting another stake-out but
needing to do something, since the Powers weren't
going to help them out with any kind of follow-up
vision. Damn, but that would be useful: "Yeah, you
definitely missed it. And so you know for the future:
we're never gonna give you more than twelve hours'
warning." So they'd nearly resigned themselves to at
least four hours of stake-out when Gunn got the idea
of looking online for clues about the
Hollywood-and-Wilcox demon, and found very quickly
that the two bodies behind the dumpster were not so
much "poor bastards", more "career criminals" (and not
dainty white-collar crime, neither). Put a big
question mark against the theory that those two were
any part of keeping "her" safe and put a casting-call
out for some new theories.

Death by dumpster. It still sounded like a demon's
work. Maybe  it was another situation like the Prio
Motu, where the demon was protecting her and Gunn and
Wesley were supposed to help. But when? And where? Be
a lot simpler if Angel could draw them a picture of
what she had been scared of. If his drawing matched up
with the mug-shots for those two behind the dumpster,
then that would mean that the demon had saved her,
that it was over. But in that case, the vision had
been sent at least an hour too late. Could that be the
reason it had brought out the vampire - because it was
a totally fucked-up vision, in every sense? God knows.
There were no other reports of any strange,
demon-shaped incidents in that area, either good or
bad

"What's your gut feel, Wes?"

"That it was last night, whatever it was."

"Yeah, me too. We sure enough of that, though, to be
able to sleep soundly tonight?"

A long silence, then: "I can't decide that now. Things
look different in the day. I'll have to find out how I
feel when it's night."

Half an hour later Wesley had decided one thing about
how he felt: that he wanted to cook a stroganoff for
dinner. He went out to get the groceries he needed,
and on his way did yet another round of the
Hollywood-and-Wilcox alleys to see if any part of the
puzzle became clearer in daylight. It didn't.

After they had eaten and done the dishes, Wesley
checked whether Angel was awake, then heated a beaker
of blood and took it in to him. Gunn heard Wesley
urging Angel to drink, then urging him to get dressed,
even choosing a set of clothes for him and getting him
started with putting them on. Angel said nothing that
Gunn heard, didn't even thank Wesley for the blood.
When Wesley came out of the room, he stood for several
seconds with his hand on the door-handle, clearly
thinking, then turned the key in the lock.

"Is he in another stage, or something? He's not about
to turn back?"

Wesley shook his head. "He's so dazed, I think there's
a risk he might wander out into the street while we're
gone." A sigh. "I'm sorry, Charles. It's going to be
another long night. I have to be sure."

"I know." Wesley sounded like he'd only just made his
decision, but Gunn had seen it coming over the last
three hours: Wesley had got more and more restless,
the cooking the only thing that seemed able to hold
his concentration. Of course they had to be sure, even
if their gut feeling was the same as before. What type
of men would decide that the chance to save someone's
life wasn't worth a few hours of lost sleep?

At 2 a.m., after a jaw-cracking yawn, Gunn said, "Wes.
If we're gonna do this tomorrow, too, we're gonna have
to sleep all day. And what if Angel gets another
vision? We could do this for a week and still never
know. Maybe in that time, if we'd just kept on with
our normal work, we coulda saved someone else."

A long, long silence. "And if we read in the news
tomorrow that it happened half an hour after we went
home?"

Gunn said slowly, "Have you ever had a vision go wrong
before? You and Angel?" Wesley nodded and closed his
eyes hard. "How d'you deal with it? You 'n' him?"

Wesley opened his eyes. "Mostly we didn't talk to each
other until the next vision."

"You blamed each other?"

"I didn't blame him."

Gunn frowned. "He blamed you?"

"Well, he must have."

Never again. Or Angel would have Gunn to answer to.
"How much would you blame me if I pulled the truck out
and took us home right now? What would that do to us?
To you and me?"

Wesley looked startled, and turned to stare at Gunn.
"How would you feel, then, when you read about 'her'
in the news?" He truly wanted to know.

"Terrible, but... I've had members of my crew die and
sometimes I knew that if I'd made a different decision
then maybe, probably, they'd still be alive. But all
you can do is make the best decision with what you
know at the time. And if you don't know anythin' and
you still got to make a decision, then you tell
yourself that life's a bitch and you toss a coin." As
simple as that. Wesley didn't need to know how many
times, over how many years, Gunn had felt close to
drowning in rage and guilt and despair before he let
himself accept that he would never be able to turn
himself into the person who always knew the best thing
to do, that he would have to keep on putting his
people in the hands of stupid, brutal luck. "I think
that's where we are now. 'cept I don't wanna toss a
coin. Giving this up's a terrible thing to have to do,
but you know we'd have to find a reason to give it up,
sooner or later. And I'm sure enough now that it's
more important for us to get back to our lives. If..."
He sighed. "If it goes wrong, we'll get each other
through it. Won't we?"

After a lot of frowning, Wesley said, looking straight
forward, out into the street, "I wonder how many
arguments you'll win with me next weekend. I'm going
to get nervous of even getting in the truck with you."

Gunn wanted to reach over and touch Wesley's hand,
hold it if Wesley would let him. But Wesley's hand was
on the seat by his right thigh, and reaching across
Wesley's body for it wouldn't be the same thing at
all. Instead, he put his hand on Wesley's back, over
his left shoulder-blade. "We'll get each other through
it. We'll get each other through anything."

Angel was asleep when they got back, stretched out on
the floor beside his bed. He was looking almost like
the vampire had looked just before it had leapt to its
feet, tried to throw itself at Wesley. Wesley wanted
to put the clothes away, thought it might help Angel
get back to normal if the room was back in order when
he woke up. They couldn't get to the wardrobe, though,
with Angel lying in front of it, so they laid the
clothes neatly over the chair instead, and Wesley set
out another change of clothes at the foot of the bed.

They were both far too tired for sex, and even if they
hadn't been, Gunn thought that the argument and the
decision might have made the situation difficult. They
weren't angry with one another, but they were too
serious, much too guilty to be able to look for
pleasure for themselves. They needed to hold one
another, though, and were pressed tight when they fell
asleep, and also when they woke up.

"Will you tell Angel about the chains today? If he's
well enough. How we're gonna start usin' them."

"As soon as I can. I'll call you when I've done it. We
can decide then exactly what equipment we need."

Gunn nodded. "I thought I might go back to that bar
this evening, after training. For about an hour."

Quietly: "Be careful."

"You're the reckless one, English." Gunn was smiling.
"And then when I come back, I was hoping you'd fuck
me. If you think I'm ready."

The effect on Wesley's breathing was instant. "I think
by now there's only one way to find out."

* * * * *

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