[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Three 4/18 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Three 4/18

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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That night Gunn was dragged out of a deep sleep to
find the main light was on, and Angel was standing in
the doorway of their bedroom. Wesley was already
awake. He must have been lying against Gunn's back,
but now he was pushing himself up, talking to Angel in
a voice still thick with sleep. Gunn became instantly
alert, started to sit up, ask what was wrong.

"There's nothing wrong, Charles. You should go back to
sleep. I think Angel just needed to see our room."

"Oh." Angel was looking around like he'd never seen
the room before, maybe never seen a bedroom, even. He
seemed puzzled by the two of them, as well, and also
by the living room. The main light was on in the
living room, and he kept turning his head and
checking. That it was still there? "Why?"

Mild, and now fully awake: "What are you looking for,
Angel?"

"You have someone."

"Yes. His name is Charles. You usually know him."

Angel seemed to believe Wesley, became immediately
much less puzzled, or at least less troubled. "Is he
the reason we moved? Have we moved... with him?"

"We haven't moved. Not since December when we moved
out of the office and moved in here. And that was long
before we met Charles. You sound as if you don't
recognise this apartment. Is that right?"

Angel sighed, and dragged his hand back over his hair.
"I don't know. Have I been here all the time? I
thought I... We were somewhere else. Somewhere far.
For... for a long time. Much longer than we've been
here. I was... I was there. And this seems... I don't
know myself here."

"Well, you've been here all the time. Over six months.
But you had a very difficult vision yesterday. And
then a hallucination. So you could say that you were
somewhere else. And I wouldn't be surprised if you
felt as if you were there for years."

Angel nodded slowly. "What was the vision? I don't
remember."

"Why don't you go back to your room, and I'll come
through in a minute and tell you about it. If we talk
here we'll stop Charles from getting his sleep, and he
already knows about the vision."

Wesley was away for nearly an hour. Gunn dozed, on and
off, had many small, strange dreams about Angel being
in their room, Wesley and Angel in Angel's room,
sitting on the floor in the space between the bed and
the wardrobe. Every time he woke, he seemed to go
through the exact same process of realising where the
dreams had come from. He was awake when Wesley
returned, couldn't possibly sleep once Wesley and
Angel had started laughing.

"So where was he? Couldn't've been all bad, way you
were laughin'."

Wesley sighed. "He was back in hell, which is what I
thought. He doesn't remember directly, of course, but
when I told him how he'd reacted, he said he must have
thought he was back in hell. So he would have thought
we were the pair of demons guarding him. They all
tortured him sometimes. In different ways."

Gunn stared at Wesley for about five seconds. "You
really mean 'hell'? Not just a way of speaking? He was
in hell? Actual hell? With pitchforks and..."

"Probably not that that hell. But, yes, I mean it. He
was held in one of the demon dimensions. Not quite one
of the prison dimensions like the dimension where
Grouw's sister works. But close enough. Probably
worse."

"What did he - How did he get sent there?"

"He opened a gateway to it. And got sucked in."

"Because of a vision? You got him out?"

"No. This was in Sunnydale. Before the visions. Before
I met him. He was... brought back eventually."

"Sunnydale. Oh. How long was he there?" Well, that
would be a reason for keeping off the subject of
Sunnydale.

"A few months in our time. But time passes differently
in most of those dimensions. At least for the
prisoners. For him, it was a hundred years or more."

"A hundred years? A hundred years of being chained up
like that? Tortured by demons?"

Wesley nodded.

"Fuck! No wonder he was - If he thought he was back
there."

"I'm wondering if he thought he'd never left. Even
when he's relatively lucid... Talking to him just now
it was obvious that his grasp of time is getting worse
and worse, his grasp of things happening in a
sequence. He kept on talking about the feeling that
he'd just come back from a long time somewhere else. I
think that was like an aftertaste from a dream. A
weight in his mind. Or maybe a shape where the weight
used to be. Still pulling at him, even when he's
lucid." Wesley was shaking his head. "And the Angel we
found in there this morning... I don't think he has
any grasp of time. I don't think he understands
anything except being afraid. He's walled up in some
closed section of our Angel's mind. Completely
closed."

"Did you ask him about whether we should use the
chains again?"

Wesley nodded. "He said we have to use them. And he
said we had done everything we could afterwards. From
what I told him. There was nothing his guards could
have done to make him trust them. It was kindest to
let him hide. Maybe take the chain off the bed before
we left him. Clear everything away. He'd be frightened
to see us handling the chain, but it would be easier
afterwards."

"OK. I'll - I'll find out how to go easier with the
gag, too. I made a mess of him."

"He's healed now. He doesn't even know."

"God. Never thought I'd want to have someone hold a
grudge against me." Seemed much longer than one day,
since he'd been wanting to kill Angelus. "What were
you two laughing about?"

"Um... Some things that happened back in the old
building. Arguments we had, mostly. And then we were
talking about books. He was looking for something to
read. We talked about books we were ashamed to admit
we liked. Books we wouldn't read in public. But I
throw those away once I've read them, so I gave him
'The Loved One' and a collection of Wodehouse stories
about Hollywood. And told him about my ideas for a
Literary Tour of L.A. Which currently is too obviously
simply an excuse to quote at length from my favourite
English humorists."

"Sounds like you got him almost back to normal by the
end. Did he say whether we did the right thing leaving
his door open? We gonna have to get used to him
wandering in here every time? Good thing we were just
sleeping."

"I'll ask him. We can always lock our door. But... I
don't know what he'd have done tonight if he'd found
the door locked."

It was always about Angel. Of course it was. And of
course when Wesley did ask, Angel wouldn't even
remember that he'd barged in on them. "Guess he'd've
knocked. Vampire senses. He'd've known we were in here
by hearing us breathing."

* * * * *

When the year 2000 ended and 2001 began, Wesley and
Gunn were fully absorbed in giving Gunn a slow,
serious, silent fuck. They had decided not to join in
any of the looking back or looking forward. 2001 was
obviously going to be difficult where Angel was
concerned, but then 2000 had been brutal to both of
them in different ways. Still, here they'd found each
other and they were so good together. Didn't need
saying, and they'd agreed to spend the night saying
nothing.

In the first week in January, Angel had another
hallucination during training, thought he was back in
some other fight, and two days later, on the Saturday,
Angel went through the entire day without knowing who
Gunn was, not even during their training session. He
seemed only slightly puzzled by Gunn's presence, paid
little attention to Gunn himself, but watched
carefully whenever Wesley spoke to Gunn. Three times
that day, after about ten minutes of watching, he said
to Gunn, "I should know you. Shouldn't I?" and each
time Gunn said, "Yeah, we've met before. But there's
no real reason you'd remember." At this rate, Angel
would be useless for training by the end of the month.

On the Wednesday evening of the following week, Wesley
was working late on a translation while Gunn was
trying yet another search idea for finding a clue to
that "hospital" vision. Gunn was nearly as alert as
Wesley now to sudden noises from Angel, so when the
agonised cry came from behind the closed door, they
were both on their feet in the same instant. Wesley
ran straight into Angel's room while Gunn went to get
the chains, but called out after a few second that
Angel hadn't changed, they didn't need the chains.
Gunn dumped the chains outside the door and went to
stand next to Wesley and see what Angel was drawing.

"Hey, that looks just like - And he's saying Vernon
and La Salle. That's where the nest was. Jeez, how
many of that nest did we miss? And looks almost like
they've snatched the same kids."

Wesley was nodding. "I hope the rest of the nest
haven't taught themselves even more from that raid
than we have. Taking the same kids... That feels to me
like a deliberate rematch. We're going to need a lot
more than surprise this time."

"Yeah. Only plus is, now we know the layout. They
can't've changed that."

Angel's drawing became slower, then stopped. Gunn
leaned forward and took the pad from his hands. "It
does look like the same kids. What was the one with
the blood all over his eye? Jed?"

"Jed, yes. And that might be more than a rematch, it
might be part of the sadism. To take them again. From
what we know -" Wesley broke off because Angel had
suddenly stood up and started to urge them towards the
door.

"Vernon and La Salle. There's a nest of six vampires.
They've got three kids chained up in separate rooms.
We'll go in with the crossbows, clear what we can.
Then you two get the kids out while I deal with the
rest."

They collected the weapons-chest and were out of the
apartment in a minute. They might not have the
advantage of surprise but they had Angel, and that
made the odds look much better. On the drive over,
Wesley told Angel that this looked like the remains of
the nest from their mission at the beginning of
December, and Gunn described the layout of the house.

The house was empty, the door still broken and open
from their first raid. From the look and smell, it
hadn't been empty for all of those weeks, but it was
empty tonight. Angel insisted it was the right house,
went to each of the rooms where they'd found the kids,
reacting to each room with horror and recognition.

"Angel..." Wesley's voice was uncertain, almost wary.
"Is it possible that it wasn't really a vision? Maybe
that's why you got stuck in it the first time? Because
something went wrong when they were sending it? We
know strange things happen sometimes."

Angel shook his head hard. "It was a vision. We must
be too early. They haven't come back yet. Or maybe
they're out now, taking those kids."

Gunn got his phone. "Then we'll make sure we find 'em
first." He called Anne and asked about the three kids.
They'd hardly set foot outside the shelter since they
were rescued, and they were all there tonight. "Can we
come over and see them? Shouldn't need more than a
minute. Friend needs to check they're OK. M'friend
Angel, y'know?"

Anne was waiting for them. The kids were watching TV,
but she'd already spoken to them and on her signal
they headed straight up to her office. Gunn didn't
know if she'd arranged the privacy for the kids'
benefit or because of what she'd heard of Angel, but
it was a good call. Angel seemed freaked out by the
shelter, the closest Gunn had seen to how he'd been in
the thrift shop. Keeping his gaze straight ahead or on
Wesley, refusing to look at people he didn't know
unless he understood exactly what business he had with
them. Gunn bet that everyone in the shelter who saw
him was thinking "cop with the worst kind of
attitude". Except for Anne and the three kids, who
were thinking "brain damage".

Angel recognised the kids immediately, started to
lecture them on keeping safe, staying off the streets
until... He trailed off quickly, looking so confused
that Gunn thought he might be about to shut down like
he did after a hallucination, not just do his usual
drifting away.

"Angel! I think I know how we can answer this." Wesley
had got at least some of Angel's attention back. "If
Anne can find some paper and a pencil, can you draw
any of the vampires? Did you see enough of them? If we
recognise them as the ones we killed in December, then
we'll know that there's been a mistake and that the
danger is over."

Angel nodded, and Anne showed him to her desk and
pointed out the pad and pencils. While he was drawing,
the Jed kid came over to Gunn and said, "Heard you
used to be with the guys who do the self-defence
here." The tone was friendly, maybe even admiring.

"Yeah. Left a few months back." With a lopsided smile,
like he was making a simple joke: "Why? Anne have to
warn you not to say you'd met me?"

Jed laughed, no edge to the sound at all. "Everyone's
heard how we got here. Who we owe. So we were swapping
vampire stories at the first class and Rondell..."
Another laugh. "He said George had just lost the bet
on how quick you'd lose your touch. Big money!"

"Yeah, that's George."

At the sound of tearing paper they both turned to see
Angel passing the sheet to Wesley, and Wesley already
nodding. "This is the sire." Wesley held the picture
up to Gunn and Jed, and then to the other two kids.
"Isn't it?" They all agreed that it was, and Wesley,
Gunn and Toni told Angel that they'd seen that vampire
die. Wesley said there was no revivication that could
work with ashes. The vision was a mistake. Or it was
supposed to be telling them something else entirely.
For tonight, anyway, they could all sleep soundly.

"Apart from a few nightmares about tomorrow's
fundraiser. Good thing you did this tonight, eh?"

"That's tomorrow? Hey!" Gunn was excited for Anne and
for the shelter, and surprised to realise how long it
had been since they'd last really spoken. "Don't need
to have nightmares. What could go wrong?"

"Let's see... What about my dress? Or my speech? Or no
one showing?"

"Never gonna be a problem. Not with you. And not with
your mega-lawyers. Call you at the weekend, OK, and
you can tell me how much I was right."

When they got home Angel sat down at Wesley's desk
with a drawing pad and wouldn't stop drawing vampires
until all six had been accounted for. He had gone from
confused to puzzled back at the shelter, and was now
mostly angry.

"It was a vision!"

"I know, Angel. We all saw that. We all heard it. I
don't want to think it was a mistake, either. But if
we're supposed to work out what else it was about..."
Wesley shrugged. "I'm not in any state to do it
tonight. And I don't think the message is urgent. Not
in that way. Why don't you have a hot bath and a large
glass of scotch - and sleep on it?"

* * * * *

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