[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Three 9/18 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Three 9/18

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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After Gunn had drilled the hole in the door and fitted
the spyhole, they closed the door and checked the
view, then, after an exchange of messages, went back
into the bedroom for Gunn to haul the bed across to
the far side of the room. Angelus was lying on his
side now, and he was back in his human face; his
expression was some sort of hoarded resentment, but he
didn't look at them. Wesley told Gunn later that
Angelus had slowly slumped over about ten minutes
before Gunn got back, but he hadn't seen the moment
when the face changed.

When the door was closed again and they had both
nodded that they were happy now with the view, Wesley
turned to put his crossbow down on the armchair, then
they looked at one another, finally letting the
reaction show, and stepped forward at the same moment
to hold one another tight.

Wesley was the first to release his hold, taking a
deep breath. "I suppose we'd better see what he was
doing while I was out in the hallway."

They did still have a computer, and there was no
obvious sign of damage in the living room; the books
were still on the shelves, the scroll that Wesley was
translating for Lilah Morgan was still in one piece
and still readable. They checked their bedroom next,
and as soon as they opened the door they saw that the
vampire had done at least one thing: he had torn the
arm from Wesley's best jacket and placed the arm on
the bed; slightly bent, the cuff hanging about an inch
over the side. Wesley gasped and took a staggering
step backwards, looking like he was going to throw up.
Gunn grabbed him and started leading him to the couch.

"Wes, Wes, it's OK. I've got you. It's OK."

Wesley was struggling weakly against Gunn, looking
back towards the bedroom with an expression that was
almost desperate. "No. No. I've got to -"

"You've got to forget it. Don't let him - Don't go
back in there. I'll deal with it. Get rid of anything
he's touched. Come on. Sit down. I've got you."

Wesley did sit down, heavily, lay with his head tilted
back and his eyes closed. Gunn held his hand (which
was noticeably cold) and gently rubbed his thumb over
Wesley's wrist. Eventually Wesley opened his eyes, but
he wouldn't look at Gunn, not properly, kept his gaze
fixed on Gunn's hands.

After a while Gunn stopped waiting for Wesley to look
up. "Can I get you anything? Some tea?"

Wesley shook his head, then after a second squeezed
Gunn's hand and raised his eyes to Gunn's. "A beer
would be very good, after we've killed him."

Gunn was surprised. "We going to? So he's never gonna
change back? It's that obvious?"

A sigh, then: "I don't know. I'd want to wait and see,
anyway, how well we managed to deal with him. If we
could make it worth the risks, to get the visions."

"Won't kill him today, then. Beer still good, though?"

"Maybe with dinner. If I can manage to eat anything."

"You OK for me to..." Gunn gestured with his head
towards the bedroom, and Wesley nodded.

Angelus had torn the left arms out of all five of
Wesley's jackets and put the jackets back in the
wardrobe with the left sides facing outwards. Gunn
couldn't find the other four arms anywhere in the
bedroom. He decided immediately that they'd get Wesley
new jackets, he wouldn't even ask Wesley if he wanted
to get the jackets mended. He got a trash bag from the
kitchen and stuffed the jackets and the arm into it.
On his way to the front door he glanced down
automatically as he passed Wesley's desk, like he was
in the middle of his usual routine for emptying the
garbage, and he discovered that Angelus had put the
other four arms in Wesley's waste bin, just dumped as
far as Gunn could tell, not arranged.

Wesley's hand seemed warmer. They sat in silence for a
few minutes, then Gunn said, "It happened in a
bedroom?"

Wesley nodded. "I'd tracked the Kungai to an
apartment. One-room. The last time I saw my left arm,
it was lying on the bed. In exactly that position.
It's hardly the first time I've thought about it, of
course. The shock was... realising that he'd been
there too. Angelus. Thinking how much he must have
enjoyed it."

"So they're not separate? You always both talk like
they are."

"Oh." A long, exhausted sigh. "I don't know any more.
That bastard in there can't really be Angelus. He's
still got his soul, I'm sure of that, even now. I
think he must be... the part of Angel that's furthest
from remorse. Because they do share the same memories.
Or they share memories up to the start of the
brain-damage. So Angel must have the memories of...
every aspect of the other's sadism. He does know what
it's like to adore inflicting pain. Pain or terror. He
always knows. But when he's whole he's also sincerely
horrified by those feelings, and that's what's
stronger. Before the brain-damage he was always whole
when he had his soul. Now... we're having to take our
luck with whatever fragment of him we get."

"Luck. Yeah. You know, whatever happens - Whether he
changes back or not. We can't ever leave him unlocked
again. If he can do this without any warning... Fuck,
Wes! If he hadn't done that 'Englishman' thing, if
he'd just walked in on you without saying anything!"

Wesley was looking sick again. "You've no idea how
glad I am right now that he is a sadist. That he'd
rather take the chance to scare me than make sure of
getting my blood."

"No. Think I've got some idea." Gunn swallowed. "D'you
think he'd've made you into a vampire? Maybe... to set
you up for me?"

Wesley looked startled. "I hadn't -" Slowly: "Maybe.
But my gut feel is that he'd regard me as a waste of
blood."

Soon afterwards Wesley went to look through the
spyhole, while Gunn checked whether the vampire had
left anything for them in the bathroom and the
kitchen. Angelus was lying quietly in the same
position, might even be asleep; and the bathroom and
kitchen were clear.

They phoned out for pizza, which was Wesley's
suggestion and a big surprise to Gunn. He'd decided
early on that Wesley would rather take a pint of pig's
blood than get any kind of to-go food (probably partly
being a food snob, partly trying to save money, and
partly being paranoid about anyone coming to the
apartment). But tonight Wesley was finally ready to
have someone else do all the work.

The sun went down shortly after they'd placed their
order, and when Wesley next looked through the
spyhole, the room had got so much darker he could only
barely see that Angelus was still on the bed. Gunn
unlocked the door and turned the light on while Wesley
covered him, crouched down with the crossbow. Angelus
certainly seemed to be asleep, didn't react at all to
the noise or the light.

They allowed themselves just one beer each with the
pizza, having even less idea than usual what the next
few hours would bring. Wesley asked Gunn about the
game of pickup and Gunn told him about the questions
and how he'd reacted to them, and also that he'd
enjoyed the game and knew the crew'd be fine about
asking him again.

"Don't think I'll go every time, though. Once a
month's enough to keep things easy. And Wes, we gotta
get you a cellphone. You can't get stuck like that
again." No argument from Wesley, though they talked
about whether they should use the new 'phone as a
second number for Wyndham Gunn, or use it as the main
number for Angel Investigations. Using it for Angel
Investigations would make the most sense since they'd
have to change the number anyway when they moved
apartments. They agreed they'd been neglecting Angel
Investigations since Wyndham Gunn had taken off, that
Gunn should spend at least an extra four hours each
week trying to build the business up again.

After dinner and another look at the sleeping vampire,
Gunn booted up the computer so he could get a start on
those four hours with a web search. And then maybe a
couple of hours of Tomb Raider. Wesley needed his
reading-time on the couch more than ever; mustn't let
himself get spooked about reading on the couch because
of what might have happened with Angelus. Gunn opened
the browser, reached behind the keyboard for his pen,
looked up at the screen again - and leapt back with a
raw cry, and with such force that he knocked his chair
over.

"Charles! What's -" Wesley had thrown his book aside
and was getting to his feet.

"No!" Gunn shouted the word, made it an order. "Stay!
You mustn't see."

Wesley didn't sit down again, but he didn't make any
move to come closer. "He's done something, hasn't he?"

Gunn nodded. "He - In my web browser. He made it so it
loads up with a porn site. Really nasty. Sick."

"Ah. Yes. He's something, isn't he?"

"Like you said, you can't imagine."

"Are you OK? Is there anything I can do without...
coming over?"

"No. It was the shock. I know how to get rid of it.
Though if you'd be ready to share another beer with me
when I'm done..." Wesley nodded, with a very small,
grim smile, then sat down again and reached for his
book.

Gunn bent to set his chair back on its feet, then
closed his eyes as he sat down again, unable to look
at the screen even for the time it would take to
switch to another window. He guessed that Wesley was
imagining child porn, actually hoped he was. That
would be foul - but foul in a random way, not like it
was any comment on the two of them. Instead, Angelus
had given Gunn an amputee fetishist site. A site for
gay men. Like that was the reason he was with Wesley.
Like that was the only reason. And he had set it up
specially for Gunn, hadn't he? He knew Gunn would be
the one to find it. Wesley was right, you couldn't
imagine what Angelus could do - not till he was doing
it to you.

Gunn opened his eyes, and clicked on the first
bookmark on his list as the quickest way to get that
hideous page out of his browser. But the browser
didn't switch to the L.A. Times: it started loading a
second amputee site. Oh, Jesus, had he done this to
all of Gunn's bookmarks? Gunn didn't dare to try
another, but decided to deal straight away with the
first problem Angelus had left him. He went through
the process of changing the settings for the browser,
concentrating fiercely on not seeing or reading any
part of the current page. He changed the startup page
back to Google, checked the other settings but didn't
find any more surprises from Angelus, and gave a
ragged sigh of relief when he finally got back to the
safety of Google.

Now he was going to have to check all of his
bookmarks. He deleted the ruined one for the L.A.
Times and created a new one, and then started working
through the rest of the list. Angelus hadn't touched
the other bookmarks at the top level, but there was
something waiting for Gunn inside almost every
sub-folder. Angelus had added bookmarks to yet more
amputee sites (or Gunn assumed they were amputee sites
- he was deleting the bookmarks immediately, without
loading the page), and he'd given them titles like
"Hot Fantasy - Pompous Neurotic Bent over his Books"
and "Man on Boy Action - Cowering in the Closet".
Again, Gunn tried not to read them, but he had to read
them if he was going to find them and delete them; it
wasn't until some dark, sleepless hour that night that
he realised there was a way he could have avoided
reading them, if he'd been willing to delete all his
bookmarks in one go.

When Gunn was finished he got the beer and took it to
the couch. They shared the beer, then touched and
kissed and murmured - even laughed. Soon they started
to get breathless, though, and they drew apart, looked
at one another, then shook their heads and sighed the
same resigned sigh.

Gunn said, "Yeah, last thing we should do is spend the
night in the bedroom. The one room in the apartment
where we wouldn't hear him. Have to save it up. I'll
take first watch."

"OK. Make it midnight to four. I'll do four till
eight."

"Yeah, that's tonight. But how many nights we prepared
to save it? Not lookin' to live like this."

"No. It would be impossible. We'll work out something
better, when we know more. Maybe in the new apartment
we could... I don't know... set up a microphone in his
room, put speakers in our room. He couldn't get free
without making some noise. And I'm a light sleeper."

"I know. Hey! What about a baby monitor? We could get
one of those tomorrow. Think we'd be OK then to go to
bed. Put some more chains on him. Lock all the doors.
And take all the keys and weapons into the bedroom
with us."

"Yes. But we'd also need something to keep him away
from the windows. A layer of garlic, maybe." Wesley
smiled suddenly. "Or very thick curtains woven from
garlic bulbs and crucifixes. Drapes, that is. But I
suspect IKEA only does those on special order. We'd
have moved apartments by the time they arrived."

Gunn laughed, but a few minutes later he found he had
an idea. "You know what you said about drapes? We
don't need IKEA. We c'n make them like you made the
net. But put the crosses all over, not just round the
edges. Close enough together that he can't touch any
part of it."

Wesley looked impressed. "That's a good idea. And not
just for curtains. Once we've got the protection
spells in place in the new apartment, we could use the
nets on the floor in each doorway. It might not stop
him, but it would slow him down. And give us some more
noise, especially if we put some bells in with the
crosses. We'd know then, if he was trying to move one
of the nets."

"Yeah, I like it." Gunn laughed again. "Wacky crafts
project. We'd have to take away all his shoes, though.
Maybe all his socks, too."

Wesley nodded. "Of course. Or go further and take out
everything except the bed. Keep him naked." Wesley was
serious.

"Would slow him down, that's for sure. But us too,
maybe, arguin' for half the day about how often we
really need to be checkin' at the spyhole." And then,
still laughing, they were touching and breathing hard
again - and then shaking their heads and deciding that
they were not safe together on the couch and Gunn
should go and play his computer game.

Wesley got up to go to bed shortly before midnight,
and Gunn stopped the game, took his headphones off,
and started up the browser. Working on that search was
definitely the best way for him to keep awake and
alert. 

He was avoiding using his bookmarks, he knew he was.
In the first hour he found two new sites that looked
promising - and he didn't add them to his bookmarks.
He felt cold, just thinking about opening any of his
subfolders. Some day soon, when they had Angelus
properly chained up, lying on the floor without an
inch of slack, there would have to be a time when Gunn
knew Wesley was going to be gone for at least half an
hour; and then Gunn would put on his heavy boots and
go in there and give the bastard... Well, not a
fraction of what he deserved. Couldn't do it if
Angelus was naked though, and Gunn would have to hold
back from going for the face. Not because it was too
much, but because Wesley mustn't find out. Soon.
Angelus was gonna get it soon. Gunn's throat was
tight, the need pressing up in him to deal out the
pain to the place it belonged.

How could Angel even have thoughts like that about
Wesley? Even with going crazy, his mind coming apart,
his brain shouldn't be able to start a thought like
that, let alone bring it out as words. Finding words
in him for despising Wesley. 'cos yeah, it was as bad
as that. With all Wesley had done for Angel, and the
way he'd done it, never counting any cost. There
shouldn't be anything, not anywhere in Angel, that
could hold dark thoughts about Wesley.

And only about Wesley. There hadn't been a single word
about Gunn. Like Angel thought Gunn was damn-near
perfect, couldn't find one dig he could make about
Gunn himself. Not even trying a shot over the race
thing. "Prissy College Boy Seeks Buck Nigger" -
nothing close to that, not even for one bookmark. And
nothing about how Gunn had left his crew. Nothing
about his new friends being demons. Nothing either
about what Angel must know about Gunn and Wesley and
sex - from the sounds he'd heard and from the scent on
them. Nothing at all about Gunn. Just Wesley, alone in
his sights. When, if there was any justice, any
reckoning of who Angel owed, it should've been the
other way round.

Unless... Had Angel left Gunn alone because he'd
forgotten everything about him? Even forgotten that he
was black?

Hard to imagine forgetting that, but... If Wes was
right about how Angel's mind worked, maybe Angelus
just didn't know the things that Angel knew. Angelus
used to, he and Angel used to share memories, but the
damage from the visions had split them apart. So
Angelus didn't really know about Gunn coming to live
with them, nothing about Gunn's crew or the demons or
anything else. All Angelus knew was Wesley. Not
difficult for him to work out from their bedroom that
Wesley was living with a man, and probably an easy
guess that this man was the one who used the computer;
but no clues to anything else about the man, nothing
that could be used directly as a weapon. Just that he
had sex with Wesley. Maybe loved Wesley.

Yes. That was possible. So it might not have been a
deliberate choice, to aim only for Wesley. Might make
a very slight difference to where Gunn aimed his
boots. The next time Gunn found a promising new
website he added it to his bookmarks - and dealing
with his bookmarks hardly bothered him at all now, so
he retraced his steps and added the other two sites
that he'd avoided adding earlier.

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Rather read Kungai in HTML or PDF? See http://www.kelper.co.uk/kungai