[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Three 6/18 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Three 6/18

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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They got up at their usual time on Monday morning and
Angel came out just as they were about to start work.

"Did I have a vision? I woke up on the floor."

"Yes, you had a vision. It's something to do with a
film, but we couldn't work out what film. Or where
we're supposed to be." Wesley passed the drawings over
to Angel.

Angel stared at the first drawing, the close-up, then
flicked it aside, letting it fall to the floor, and
quickly went through the other drawings in the same
way until he was left holding the last sheet. "This
was a vision? Last night?" He seemed held still with
some kind of shock, no trace of the urgency that Gunn
would expect about an unsolved vision.

"At about five o'clock yesterday afternoon. Do you
know the film? Are we too late?"

Angel was shaking his head. "It's not a film. This was
Prague. I think it was 1860. I chose her. Druscilla
chose the street." He looked down at the drawing, tore
it in two, then watched the pieces fall to the floor.
"When... she got close enough to see their faces, she
screamed so hard half the lacing was ripped out of her
corset."

"Angelus." Wesley swallowed hard. "You had a vision
about Angelus. Do you - Do you think they're warning
us that he might get loose?"

Gunn said, "Could be there's something wrong with how
we're chaining him. We need to get quicker? Not even
give him those six inches?"

"Do you think it's as simple as that? Angel?" Wesley
wasn't disagreeing with Gunn, just asking Angel's
opinion, but Angel was staring so hard at the floor
that he might not have heard either of them. Gunn and
Wesley stood nearly as still as Angel, waiting.

When Angel finally raised his head, he looked straight
into Wesley's eyes. "You'll kill me." Wesley nodded.
Angel turned his head abruptly in the direction of the
kitchen, took a step and nearly slid on one of the
drawings, then knelt and quickly gathered them up.
Wesley held his hand out for the drawings, but Angel
took them into the kitchen, dropped them in the trash,
then set about heating some blood. Gunn heard Wesley
give a long, quiet sigh, then Wesley sat down at his
desk and picked up his pen.

Gunn remained standing and folded his arms. "So what
is wrong with how we're chaining him? What we gotta
change?"

Angel shrugged. "Get quicker. Put the chain on the bed
and leave it there. Put more locks on the door. Make
sure he can't get out the front door or the windows.
Never put your weapons down while he's in the
apartment."

"The windows? Like putting bars up? Gonna need some
story to square that with the apartment manager." Gunn
wasn't arguing, just trying to plan.

"Or we could use magic." Wesley was reaching for a
book from the shelf next to his desk. "Sigils embedded
in the window-frame. A barrier spell. That would stop
anyone getting closer than about a foot."

"You can do that?" Wesley had mentioned magic to Gunn
a few times, but always as something that other people
did.

"If I can't, someone can."

"That take care of the doors, too?"

Wesley shook his head. "It's a complete barrier, so it
would stop any of us going through the doors. We'll
make the locks a priority with the new apartment."

"Sound OK, Angel?" Angel shrugged and said nothing,
which Gunn took as a yes. "I'll get the chain. Put it
on the bed right now."

Angel came into the bedroom before Gunn was halfway
done, and the two of them finished the work with Angel
still saying nothing. As they were pushing the bed
back against the wall, the 'phone rang on Wesley's
desk. Had to be one of Wesley's translation clients,
so Wesley would probably be busy for the next half
hour discussing ten different ways of looking at a
single sentence.

Quickly, while they still both had their hands on the
bed-frame, Gunn said, "How will we know? When it's
time to kill him. How much further does he have to
get?"

Angel frowned at Gunn. "Further than what? You do it
before he kills."

"I'm thinkin' that Wes' got used to..." Gunn shrugged.
"Livin' with some risks. 'cos he had to, when it was
just him. But whatever the two of you agreed on back
then, I bet it doesn't look the same now. With me here
and you gettin' worse."

"Wesley knows what he's doing. You think he'd
hesitate?" A challenge.

"Not for a second, once his alarm'd been triggered.
It's where his alarm's set that I'm talkin' about."

A long pause, then Angel said slowly, "I don't know
where it's set. If he took risks, I wasn't there when
it happened. You'll have to ask him."

Gunn nodded briefly. "Yeah. I'm gonna argue this with
him till we've both got set to the same point. You
want us to tell you afterwards what point we decided?"

"No. It's best if I don't know. So Angelus can't know
either. Argue it soon."

Gunn let go of the bed and stepped back. "Yeah. The
vision. We'll be done by tomorrow."

Wesley was still on the 'phone but he wasn't talking
translation - unless he'd just been given a lead for a
client in a whole new league. "Thank you. Yes. I'll
call him right away. That would make so much
difference. Thank you." After he'd put the 'phone down
Wesley turned to Gunn, looking almost dazed with
surprise and relief. "Isn't that incredible? I
wouldn't have guessed she'd give us a second thought."

"I just came in at the end. Who was it?"

"Lilah Morgan. She's heard of an apartment in Lawndale
that sounds very promising. It's on the second floor,
and one bedroom is on the corner of the building,
doesn't share any walls with rooms from other
apartments. The room underneath it's a storeroom, and
the couple in the apartment above are practically
deaf. She's told the property manager about Angel and
the noise, and he said there had never been any
complaint about noise from that room, not even when
his sister's three boys were sleeping in it."

"Lawndale? What's the rent?"

"The same as we're paying here. And it's available
from the beginning of February."

"Call him now!" Gunn shook his head slowly. "Lilah
Morgan. Wonder which one of us she's sweet on."

Wesley almost giggled and definitely blushed. "It's
not me, so it's either you or Angel."

"She's met Angel?"

"She's seen a photograph. Of the two of us coming out
of the old building, apparently."

"Well, I don't think it's me, either. She didn't tell
the property manager about the vampire seer thing, did
she?"

"No. She said we used to work together until he got
the head injury. And I had another partner now,
working on our investigations side."

"Just 'business' partner?"

Wesley shrugged. "She said the bedrooms were both
large double rooms. But I can't see that as a real
hint about us."

"Wha'd'you wanna tell the property manager about us?"

Wesley looked hard at Gunn, not uncomfortable, just
assessing. Finally, with a quick lift of the eyebrows:
"Nothing. What about you?"

Gunn nodded. "I'm good with nothing. Maybe if it was
completely separate from our work, but... I spend
about half of each day tellin' people how smart you
are, how you can find out anything. You're exactly the
expert they need. And you are, and I love sayin' it.
But I'm not ready to find out how much business we'd
get if I knew all the time I was sayin' it they were
thinkin', 'Yeah, yeah, course you'd say that. He's
your boyfriend!' Not ready. I'll tell the truth if
they ask outright. But they don't ask."

Wesley nodded. "It'll be my name on the lease. My
references. I'll introduce you as my partner when we
go to see the apartment. If he asks, he asks."

They saw the apartment that evening, and the property
manager - a young Korean guy called Gavin Parks -
didn't ask them anything except whether it was the
type of apartment they were looking for. He wasn't
rude, exactly, but very brisk and detached, like they
should all know they didn't have to convince each
other, because Lilah Morgan had made it a done deal.

Back home, while Wesley was filling in the application
for the new apartment, Gunn received his own call with
good news. Grouw had mentioned their training problems
to his sister Yan, and she'd asked if they'd be
interested in sessions with some of the other guards
from her work. She thought she'd be able to find them
enough partners to keep up a couple of sessions a
week. The demons would come to L.A. - making use of
the generous travel allowance in their contracts - and
wouldn't expect anything more for their time than
maybe a bowl of noodles or a beer at Caritas. They'd
do it for the exercise, the change of scenery, and
because they'd be plain curious about Wyndham Gunn.

Could be perfect. Endless supply of tough demons, all
with years of their own training in fighting and
controlling other demons. Wow, think that they could
learn with two sessions every week. Use the rest of
the week to keep in shape. Perfect, except...

"Grouw, you're a star. And Yan. C'n I wait till Wes
gets home and then get back to you? Oh, hey, where is
it Yan works, again?" Wesley had been listening to the
conversation anyway, and was now looking at Gunn
questioningly. Gunn raised his hand, meant as a signal
that Wesley should wait for something.

"It's Ussur."

"Ussur, yeah." Gunn pointed at Wesley, wanting him to
memorise the name and then get into research mode; and
Wesley nodded, and started by writing the name down.
"Wes shouldn't be too late. Hell of an idea, Grouw.
Thank you."

"So what do you want to know about Ussur?" Wesley was
opening a battered old book about three inches thick.

Gunn glanced towards the closed door of Angel's room
then said quietly, "How they treat their prisoners. I
don't want to think that Yan and her boyfriend
would... do whatever was done to Angel. But if the
prison where they work is even a tenth of that, then
we can't have anything to do with them. Can we?"

Wesley looked shocked. "No. No. Of course not. I
hadn't thought of that. You liked them. And she's
doing this because you're Grouw's friend. It's a real
favour, from all of them."

"Yeah. Hope I can still be his friend if we have to
say no. God, couldn't tell him the real reason." Or
what if Grouw knew about his sister, the things she
did, and thought it wasn't a big deal? That's be even
worse. No, leave all that till Wesley had their
answer. And don't even think about the effect it might
have on their business. "Anything I can do?"

An hour later they had found references to Ussur in
three books. The books described it as a terrible
place, but largely because of the nature of its
inmates: all so dangerous they had to be kept in
permanent solitary confinement, no contact through the
centuries of their sentence with anyone except their
guards. And it was part of the sentence that the
guards would only ever treat them as objects to be
contained, not acknowledging any aspect any prisoner's
identity - not talking, not listening, not showing any
awareness that the prisoner had a history, or that one
prisoner could be distinguished in any way from
another. Gunn and Wesley agreed that this treatment
could be considered a form of mental torture -
punishment, definitely - but when Angel thought they
were his guards and shrank from Wesley in terror, it
wasn't any kind of silent treatment that he was
remembering.

Refusing to be provoked, refusing to have any
emotional reaction to a prisoner you knew was a
monster, day after working day... The guards of Ussur
must have some serious self-control, and Wesley and
Gunn couldn't see any reason, from any of the books,
to have reservations about training with them.

"We should tell Angel, though, before we get back to
Grouw. He doesn't know yet, does he, that we've met
those guards?"

Gunn shook his head. "Just knows Grouw has a sister
from out of town. If he even remembers who Grouw is
these days."

"I'll see if he's lucid. Could you bring the Radnor
over and keep it open to that page?" Wesley knocked on
Angel's door. "Angel? Can I come in?"

A pause, then footsteps, and Angel opened the door.
"What is it, Wesley?" Impatient.

"Charles and I may have found some people to train
with. For the times when you're not able to train."

"Wasn't it just -" Angel frowned, seeming puzzled.
"How long have you been looking?"

"A few days, that's all. Charles's friend Grouw has
just called with an interesting idea, but we want to
discuss it with you before we take it any further."

"Why?"

Wesley took a deep breath, then released it. "Have you
ever heard of a prison dimension called Ussur?"
Another frown, then Angel grunted a no. Wesley
gestured to Gunn to pass the book to Angel. "Could you
read that page? It's the fullest description of Ussur
that we could find."

Angel read, expressionless, then gave the book back to
Gunn. "So?"

"Grouw has a sister who works as a guard in Ussur.
Charles has met her. She may be able to arrange for us
to train regularly with some of her colleagues. We
think it would be very valuable training."

Angel stared at Wesley, then at Gunn, then back at
Wesley. "Are they duals?"

"Yes. All the colleagues we've heard of, anyway."

A long silence, then: "I don't want to meet them."

"You won't. They won't come here. You won't train with
them. But you don't think... it's wrong?"

A fractional shrug. "They could be different." To
Gunn, sharply: "Did she frighten you?"

"She would in a fight. Talking with her over a meal,
she made me laugh."

"Do it, then. Nothing to do with me." Angel turned
away and shut the door.

Their night of looking for a non-existent
costume-drama movie suddenly caught up with Wesley,
and he went to bed as soon as he'd finished the
application for the new apartment. Gunn stayed up
playing at the computer for another couple of hours,
but that evening the game seemed tame compared with
what he was imagining about the fights he and Wesley
would have with the duals, and he did his worst yet in
the game. He also had the excuse of being distracted
by good thoughts about the new apartment and by bad
thoughts about coming to that agreement with Wesley
over when they would kill Angel. They should talk in
the morning, first thing, while they were still in the
bedroom with that extra door between them and Angel.

In the morning, as soon as he was sure Wesley was
fully awake, Gunn sat up in bed and said, "There's
something we need to work out."

Wesley looked alarmed, and quickly levered himself up.
"What am I doing wrong?"

"God! No!" Gunn reached out and put his hand over
Wesley's, and kept it there while he told Wesley what
he'd been thinking, in much the same way as he'd told
Angel.

Wesley started nodding immediately. "Yes, of course.
On the day he gets loose, we can't afford to find
ourselves arguing about whether this is the time."

"So where has your alarm been set up to now? What did
you two agree?"

"Oh." A sigh. "That at the first warning that he was
breaking free, I should run. Grab a crossbow and run.
Wait somewhere safe with a view of the door - like the
end of the hallway - and kill him if he came out. He
refused to let me plan for... what would happen if he
killed me while we were inside the apartment."

"What? How could you plan for that?"

"If we were always locked in whenever we were in the
apartment. And I used holy water or crosses to make
sure he couldn't handle the keys. But he said I had to
be able to run. And that none of my ideas for the holy
water and the crosses would slow him down by even ten
minutes. If I wanted to protect people from him, my
best chance was to run."

"Damn straight."

"Otherwise we talked as if... he'd get to the point
where he knew it was time. He'd tell me to do it. Or a
vision would tell us both."

"A vision?" They had to be thinking the same thing
now, about the last vision. "No, they'd make it
clearer than that, wouldn't they? They'd show what
would happen now. What he'd done in Prague... That was
just a warning."

Wesley nodded. "I'm happy for us to treat it as just a
warning. But we should start carrying stakes all of
the time in case he breaks free while we're still
chaining him. And we should keep at least two
crossbows right by the door and be ready to run."

"Yeah. Starting this morning. What if he doesn't come
after us, and he changes back in a few hours? How can
we know that it's safe to go back? Or did you have a
signal worked out?"

"I'd decided I'd wait until the next morning and get
close enough to the door to be able to talk to him.
Angelus is clever in his way and there was a time when
he could have pretended to be Angel. But now he's too
fractured, he's lost his skills for dealing with
people, even more than Angel has. When you talk to him
it's always too obvious that he's enjoying himself.
You saw how ashamed Angel was the morning after that
time we used the net, how worried he was about what
Angelus might have done. That was all he could think
about. Angelus couldn't make a convincing pretence of
feeling like that, not even for the chance to kill us
both."

"Hmm. I'd need him to do somethin' else to prove it,
'fore I'd get closer'n twenty feet or give up my
crossbow. Like... have him chain himself to the bed.
Need to find out if he could close those locks
himself."

"We'll test that this morning. Good."

"Yeah. Good." Gunn relaxed and smiled. "Thought that'd
be much tougher to sort out."

"Why? It's the sensible thing to do."

"Guess... I was thinkin' how much you deserve a break
from bein' sensible. Must sound like I'm ripping holes
in what you been doin' so far. You know it's nothing
like that?"

Wesley turned his head and bent to press his lips to
Gunn's shoulder. "You know how many times each day I'm
made aware of how lucky I am? I know how much I need
you."

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