[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Three 2/18 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Three 2/18

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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Angel said he didn't know why he'd taken so long to
come out of the vision with the vampires; it was a
disturbing vision but there had been worse, and his
nightmares were usually about things that were truly
personal, where he really had been there. The next
vision was much easier on Angel and he came out of it
within minutes, but then as missions went, this one
was really more of an errand. The vision hit on
Tuesday afternoon of the next week, and Angel drew a
picture of a young Hispanic man sitting in a diner
looking thoughtful. The diner was in Lawndale, at
Marine and Freeman. The young man was thinking of
doing something that would turn out badly; his new
friends were not what he thought, they had sinister
plans for him. He had to be told to leave town for at
least two months, and going down to Carlsbad tonight
to spend a few days with his sister would be a good
start.

The picture, the address and the importance of leaving
came during the reverberation phase, and afterwards
Angel told them about the sister in Carlsbad, and
about the sense of impending doom. No images, no
details, but such a feeling of dread, gathering heavy
around the idea of those friends. There was no
immediate threat, the plans were measured in years;
but they could be stopped completely if the man got
out of town now. Gunn wondered what he and Wesley
would have made of the vision if Angel hadn't been in
a state afterwards to explain it. A warning about an
attack on the diner, maybe?

Gunn had the best Spanish of the three of them, and he
went into the diner on his own while Wesley and Angel
waited around the corner in the car. He told the young
man - whose name he never learned - that he had a
friend who was psychic, and this friend had just got a
really strong message. Yeah, it was crazy, but look,
Gunn had found him in the diner just like the message
said, and if he really did have a sister in Carlsbad,
maybe he should take it that the message was right
about everything. No, the message hadn't said anything
about what the new friends were planning, what the
friends really were.

The man insisted on seeing this psychic friend, which
they'd expected, and he wouldn't come out to the car.
The man's booth was full in the sun, so Wesley and
Angel took a booth on the other side of the room, and
Gunn brought the man over. Angel just told the man in
English the same as Gunn had told him, but he told it
like a psychic, like someone half in this world and
half in another, and with nowhere near enough interest
in this world to find any reason to lie about a
message. Not a performance: just Angel dealing with a
stranger (and this was him at his best, and with
Wesley and Gunn at hand to steady him). The man said
he'd think about it, that he had been wondering... He
didn't say what he'd been wondering, but it looked
like he'd already had some doubts about the new
friends. Gunn walked him back to his booth, and then
they left him to think.

No clues there about the vision of the vampires, why
it'd had that effect on Angel. Gunn couldn't see
anyone managing to get stuck in a nightmare about a
vague feeling of doom and the picture of a man sitting
quietly in a diner, so there was no point in
comparing. But Gunn had been thinking about that
vision a lot, and he'd started to wonder if Angel
getting stuck was a message in itself: meant to be a
sign to them about Angel and the visions, that
something was about to change. Well... could it be a
sign that all visions were going to be errands from
now on, that they'd been taken off the real missions?
God, Gunn hoped not. Yeah, some of the missions were
tough, but he and Wesley could handle all that action
and more. And Gunn needed his chance to fight back. He
wasn't living on the streets any more but they were
still his streets. Anything trying to move in on those
streets, he needed to be right there, the first to
teach it that poor and young didn't mean helpless.

Gunn set himself to wait for the next vision, didn't
expect to get any further before then with thinking
about Angel and signs. The next vision was eight days
later but by then Gunn pretty much knew why Angel had
got stuck in that vision: not a sign, not a message;
just something that Angel was likely to do now,
because Angel was suddenly starting to get worse.

Gunn had always been surprised and impressed by the
way Angel kept his focus during the training. Outside
of the training (or the visions), Gunn had never seen
him stay focused for more than half an hour. He'd come
out of his room, join in a normal conversation, and
then gradually drift away, lose his connection with
them - maybe his connection with the whole idea of
having a conversation - and go back to his room.
Sometimes he'd be out again within a couple of hours,
sometimes not until the next day; sometimes, probably,
he recovered in a couple of hours and just didn't feel
like talking to them until the next day. But during
the training they had always been able to rely on him
to stay in focus for at least an hour, and there would
be two or three sessions a week when he could last up
to two hours.

In the week after the errand, there were two sessions
where Angel lost his focus after much less than an
hour, and only one session where he lasted two hours.
That was enough of a change to be clear as a warning,
but during the shortest session Angel also lost focus
in a way Gunn hadn't seen before - and with that it
looked like they were dealing with a whole new kind of
damage. They were in the middle of acting out a raid
on a house when Angel lost focus in this new way;
they'd acted out a lot of raids since the mission of
the vampires and their nest, because Wesley and Gunn
could both give too many examples of what those
vampires should have done, if they'd had any brains,
or any practice at facing humans who fought back. For
this particular raid Wesley and Angel were playing the
vampires, with the pile of their jackets and coats
standing in for one of the kids in chains. Gunn burst
in, saw Angel was closest to the pile and tackled him
first, and then surprised all three of them by
managing to throw Angel against Wesley so he and
Wesley both went down. Gunn grabbed his practice-stake
from his holster, leapt forward and put his chalk-mark
right over Angel's heart.

But Angel didn't roll to the side like they were
supposed to once they'd been dusted. Instead, he
kicked out, and with Wesley pinned under him, the kick
hurt Wesley's thighs at least as much as it hurt
Gunn's - enough to make Wesley yelp, anyway. Gunn
picked himself up and took a second stake from the
holster. "Oh, come on, Angel, I got you right in the
heart. Or you sayin' we could be up against a nest
where they've all started wearin' vampire Kevlar?"

Angel didn't seem to be listening to Gunn. He was
crouched now by Wesley's side, helping Wesley get to
his feet and talking to Wesley, too low for Gunn to
hear. And all the while he was scanning the room, gaze
returning to the same points over and over, like he
was keeping track of another four vampire-hunters, all
worse than Gunn.

"Angel! Angel, there's only Charles. What
playing-field? Do you think we're in Sunnydale?"

"No. No, Willow's safe. I saw her. She'll find Giles."

"Angel!" Wesley was shouting now. "We're not in
Sunnydale. Look at me." Angel was still scanning,
stepping slowly backwards, right arm held out to guide
or protect Wesley. Wesley hauled on the arm, trying to
get Angel to turn. "Angel, look at me!"

"Buffy, this isn't -" Angel had given Wesley a
split-second's glance, then fixed his gaze back on
Gunn. "Later. I swear they're safe."

Wesley had pulled himself around to stand directly in
front of Angel. His voice was calmer now. "Angel, can
you look at me? Hear me. Buffy isn't here. You're not
in Sunnydale. You're in L.A. We're training. This
isn't a real fight. You need to... see me." Gunn
wanted to move so he could see Angel's face, but maybe
this blocking was exactly what Angel needed to snap
out.

"No, they're not -" Angel was still urgent, had his
left hand now on Wesley's shoulder, pushing him to the
side. And then he broke off and his hand fell slowly
away, and a few seconds later Wesley had to take a
jump backwards as Angel slumped heavily to his knees.

Gunn finally broke the silence. "Can I come over? Or's
he gonna think I'm a whole horde of vampires?"

Wesley sighed. "Your guess is as good as mine. But
he's not thinking anything right now."

Gunn moved carefully a few steps to the side, saw that
Angel was sitting back on his heels with his head
hanging forward, one hand palm-up in his lap, the
other on the floor. Gunn crouched down but couldn't
see if Angel's eyes were open or closed, so he
shrugged, stood up, and walked slowly over to stop at
the same distance as Wesley.

"Who's this 'Buffy'?" They were both watching Angel,
alert for any change. Wesley was right: Angel wasn't
thinking anything. Not hearing anything.

"His girlfriend in Sunnydale. She was in school with
Cordelia."

"Oh! The blonde. Is that - Was that how she died, or
something? They were attacked by vampires? God, she
couldn't've known he was a vampire."

"She's not dead. I don't know what fight he was
remembering. It could have been one of hundreds. She
was someone with a mission, too."

"She still in Sunnydale?"

"As far as I know."

"She know about him bein' a vampire?"

"Yes, she did."

"Damn! Now you're gonna tell me that Cordy knew, too."

"You know I am."

"Would it be quicker to ask who up there didn't know?"

Wesley laughed. "There were about ten, I suppose. Ten
who knew. It surprised me too when I got there. How
much they all seemed to take for granted." Wesley's
voice changed, became harder. "Don't mention Buffy to
him. Nothing about Sunnydale. He doesn't talk about
it."

Jeez, worse than what happened with Doyle? "Bad
break-up?"

"Many things went badly wrong." Gunn looked over at
Wesley and saw that his face was even grimmer than his
voice.

"OK. So what's your guess for how long he'll be like
this? Should we try to get him home?"

"I don't know. I'm reluctant to touch him. Falling on
me seemed to be what triggered the memories. The
hallucination. I don't want to trigger another trying
to get him home."

"You OK? Sorry, he fell on you pretty hard."

"I'll have some bruises. Nothing's broken." Wesley
smiled. "It was a good move."

Gunn smiled back. "Wasn't bad. Look, let's wait till
the hour's up. See how we feel then about movin' him."

They settled in to wait, sitting against the wall
opposite Angel. They were getting good at waiting
together, were now comfortable with any length of
silence. They started off this wait, though, by
talking about tactics and equipment for house-raids,
and had been talking quietly for about five minutes
when Angel slowly raised his right hand to drag it
back through his hair, lifted his head, blinked at
them as they were standing up, and then finally got to
his feet.

"We'll do one of the raids - Wesley and me against
Charles - then the sword-work and hand-to-hand. And if
we have time, I want to get Wes some practice with a
moving target."

"Angel." Wesley had come to within a few feet of
Angel. He sounded curious rather than concerned.
"What's the last thing you remember?"

"The last thing I remember? What do you mean? We're
training. We drove over here."

"So... the last thing you remember is the drive over?"

Angel shrugged. "I think I remember it. Were you
talking about that school? But that's not why you're
asking. What's happened?"

Wesley explained, not mentioning Buffy or Sunnydale,
just saying that Angel seemed to be having a
hallucination of a fight he must have had in the past.
His way of describing how the hallucination had ended
was to say that Angel had "shut down" - not passed
out, he'd still been conscious on some level.

"You were like that for about ten minutes and now
you've just pulled out of it."

Angel was shaking his head, looking confused and
worried. "I haven't done this before?"

"Not that we've seen."

"It - Couldn't it have been a vision? I don't always
remember those afterwards. Do I?"

"It wasn't a vision. Was it?" Wesley had turned to
Gunn for confirmation.

"No, man. Nothin' like a vision."

Angel swallowed and looked at the ground. "I'm getting
worse."

"It's too early to say. Maybe it's a reaction to all
the changes in the last month. Getting used to the new
types of cases we're working on. We'll see what
happens when things have settled down."

Angel looked up at Gunn, giving a lopsided half-smile.
"That's how I know I'm getting worse. When Wes has his
list ready of things that are going to 'settle down'."

Gunn didn't know what to say to that. Yeah, it looked
to him like Angel had already got used to the new
cases. But he wasn't ready, no more probably than
Wesley, to take on the idea of Angel getting worse.
Not right now. Not here. Anything he said now was
gonna be the wrong thing. He and Wes needed to act the
same on this, they needed to be working together - so
it'd be best to stall Angel till they'd got home and
done some serious talking.

Looking at Angel, you couldn't guess that his mind was
breaking down. Or Gunn couldn't, he couldn't begin to
imagine what Angel must be going through. How much
would you think about it, wonder about the times when
you weren't yourself, you were something that had to
be locked away for safety? Wonder how much longer
you'd even understand what was happening? Though maybe
Angel wouldn't think anything, wouldn't wonder
anything, not on his own. If Wesley didn't tell Angel
that he'd been lost for a day, or ask him the last
thing he remembered, then maybe he wouldn't know.
Seeing how he'd come round like that, gone straight in
to planning the raid... He'd probably just jump from
one clear moment to the next, and he wouldn't know if
the moment was an hour long or just five minutes, he
wouldn't know if the gap was two hours or two days.
Gunn didn't know if he'd want Wesley to tell him. If
it was him instead of Angel. He might want Wesley to
lie.

"Wes just doesn't like to jump to conclusions. You
know how he always starts out with three different
translations. Likes to have three different
references."

Angel said to Wesley, "What are we waiting for, then?
Two more hallucinations? Or one hallucination and
another vision I don't pull out of?"

"I don't know. But we are waiting."

Gunn said, "Are we gonna train? It's still early."

Wesley and Angel checked with one another, then Wesley
said slowly, "I don't know. I'd rather Angel didn't
fight any more tonight. Whatever triggered the
hallucination might still be close to the surface. But
will you coach Charles and me, if we train?"

They couldn't do the raid properly with just two, so
they did twenty minutes of swordplay and ten of
hand-to-hand; and after that Angel had reached his
limit so they took him home.

In bed that night, Gunn told Wesley what he'd been
thinking about Angel. How, left on his own, Angel
probably wouldn't understand enough to worry about
getting worse.

"I know. I think that every time. But when he first
started getting lost. Having gaps between his lucid
periods. Well, back then we couldn't avoid talking
about it. We had no idea what to expect. And whenever
we've talked he's insisted that he wants to know. That
he doesn't want to hide from what's happening. And he
wants to helps us work out what to do."

"If he does that again tomorrow, are we gonna keep on
trying to train with him?"

Wesley shrugged. "He can coach us."

"We're gonna need more than half an hour each time.
And we're gonna need someone else to fight. More than
one, to make as good a fight as Angel."

A sigh. "Let's wait and see."

* * * * *

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