[Gunnwesley] Fic: Kungai Part Three 16/18 (Wesley/Gunn, NC17)

[helenraven]

Title: Kungai Part Three 16/18

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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The ring arrived on Monday morning. Gunn pushed it
slowly and carefully onto Wesley's finger, then held
Wesley's hand hard, closing his eyes as he felt the
band of metal still cold against the warmth of
Wesley's skin.

"So this is what it's like to have a possessive
boyfriend." Wesley was smiling, a half-smile, with a
raised eyebrow.

"What is it like?" Gunn was still very serious. He
knew he was being too intense. Was he possessive? Did
that say it, what he'd been feeling about Wesley with
Angel? If you could even feel possessive when you
hadn't had a moment of feeling jealous.

No, not feeling jealous, but... Angel acted now like
he didn't know Wesley had a lover. Or like it didn't
matter, like Wesley might just as well have been
alone. Nothing in Wesley's life except to be there
when Angel called for him. Yeah, weeks of that now,
and maybe the main thing Gunn was feeling was that
he'd been blanked out - and by the person they lived
with, who'd even once seen them in bed together. So
here he was wanting to set some real, hard sign that
he did have a claim on Wesley, that he was right there
in Wesley's life. And of course he knew Angel was
crazy, it didn't mean anything that Angel was
forgetting how Wesley had Gunn - but that didn't
change the feeling, of needing to do something to put
himself back in the picture.

Wesley had stopped smiling, had turned nearly as
serious as Gunn. "It's... exciting. And calming at the
same time."

"Yes." On a breath, and Gunn moved in to touch his
lips to Wesley's. They stood very still, just barely
opened to one another, then Gunn stepped back and
released Wesley's hand, and they returned to work.

Angel did recognise the scene in the bar, but as
something he'd read (or witnessed?) many years ago. He
needed Wesley to read it all again, and this time he
didn't interrupt with questions, but with opinions
based on his memories, and most of his memories were
badly messed up. For the first couple of opinions,
Wesley tried to set Angel straight, but Angel was too
definite so Wesley just agreed and carried on reading.
Angel stayed with the story nearly until the end of
the scene, long enough to get concerned about the
gooned-out vice cop, who he didn't remember ("Is he
going to hurt someone? Was he talking about hurting
someone? - "Just himself, Angel. There's always a
suicidal cop in a Wambaugh novel."); and Wesley went
about ten minutes into the next scene before he saw
whatever it was that told him Angel wouldn't notice
him leave.

By Tuesday evening, when they were about to set off to
meet two more duals, Wesley said he felt as if his
head would explode or his brains would leak out of his
ears if he had to read that chapter one more time.
Angel's memories of the story never got any clearer,
and they were never the same twice; kinda interesting,
for about a day, and then you worked hard on not
listening to him. The next time, Wesley was going to
pick up where they'd left off before the vision, act
as if he expected Angel to be able to follow, as if
this was actually the start of the story, and let
Angel's memories take their chances.

"Wha'd'you think he'd do now, if you weren't there?
D'you think he'd read on his own?"

"I don't know. I'm almost tempted to put it to the
test. I'll stay for the meal tonight, at least. I need
a break."

"Yeah, y'do."

Wesley came to the bar as well, which surprised Gunn.
The effect of the ring, maybe, making him give more
weight to the parts of his life that weren't Angel. Or
helping him get some distance from Angel. Angelus was
there when they got home and the tape showed that
Wesley had chosen a good night to take a break. Wesley
even left the receiver off when they went to bed.

When Angel's shouting woke them at about four in the
morning, they thought at first he was having a vision.
But no, it wasn't a vision, or even a hallucination -
he was definitely seeing what was in front of him, and
for some reason he was outraged and disgusted by the
cop novel, and he was tearing it to pieces. They
watched him tear up all four books and the magazine,
and then he picked up Wesley's shirt and took a grip
to rip it up the back. Wesley looked away then, but
Gunn saw Angel shake his head, looking pained, bend to
clear a space on the littered floor, and place the
shirt carefully in the space.

The outrage was over. Angel stood for a long time with
his head lowered and turned to the side, then knelt
and slowly started pushing the scraps of paper across
the carpet, to hide them under the mattress. The shirt
went too, and when all of the evidence of Wesley was
out of sight, Angel staggered towards the corner
furthest from the mattress, off the screen.

Wesley turned the receiver on, put the volume up high,
but Angel was silent.

"I should never have turned it off. Or - I should have
stayed up until Angelus went to sleep. How long must
he have been calling?"

"Well, he's fucking spoiled. If he hadn't snapped out
of it with the shirt, I'd've - I dunno, he's already
been sent to his room. I'd've made him drink his blood
cold for the rest of the month."

"I suppose he had his reasons. I wonder how long he'll
stay angry with me."

Angel was back in his usual corner and in hell when
they got up. Wesley was still upset - very low, and
talking like he was dreading the next time Angel would
be lucid. Gunn kept wanting to try to joke Wesley out
of it, but what if Angel was just as bad the next
time? Better not to act like it'd be fine, but watch
instead, and work out how to help Wes once they saw
what they were up against.

Early in the afternoon, they heard waking-up sounds,
and when they looked at the screen they saw Angel
sitting up. He was looking confused and alarmed, and
then he was acting like he'd lost something really
important, searching urgently on the floor around the
sides of the mattress. They saw him giving up, and
then he turned his attention towards the door, and he
stepped forward like he was about to call out. Wesley
stepped forward too, taking a deep breath like he was
bracing himself, but Angel suddenly stopped, looking
stricken. He closed his mouth, and then he started
looking from side to side around the room in a vague,
jerky manner.

Wesley waited and watched for about half a minute,
then took another deep breath and went to knock on the
door. "Angel, are you alright? Do you want me to come
in?"

Relief, but then that stricken look again, and slowly:
"I don't know you."

"My name's Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. I've been -"

"Wesley! Wesley. It's Wesley."

Wesley opened the door. "You recognise my name?"

Angel looked at Wesley and nodded over and over.
"Wesley." A deep sigh. "I couldn't - I thought
everything had been taken away. I thought..." He
turned and looked towards the mattress.

"Are you looking for your books?"

"Yes. There should be books, shouldn't there? Books
and... you. But there was nothing."

Wesley moved further into the room to kneel down by
the nearest corner of the mattress and lift it up by
about a foot. "That's because you did this last night.
I think I must have done something to make you very
angry with me." He set the mattress back down.

Angel was shaking his head. "Why? Why would I do that?
The books help me - They help me hold on."

"I thought that you must have woken up when I was
asleep, and I didn't hear you asking me to come and
read with you. So you got angry with me. About the
books. You do get angry, sometimes."

"Yes, I..." Angel frowned, lifted his hand to his
head, then leaned down and hauled the mattress out of
the way, which revealed about half of the area
underneath, including the shirt amongst all the paper.
"Your shirt. It was your shirt." He reached in to take
the shirt, now deeply creased, raised it to his face
for a few seconds, then let it drop onto the mattress.
"But why would I hide what I'd done? Wouldn't I want
you to see? Are you sure it was me?"

Wesley shrugged. "You seemed to... regret what you'd
done at the end. You couldn't bring yourself to tear
the shirt up. It looked like you. It certainly wasn't
Angelus."

"I can't imagine being angry with you like that. I
think I'd be disappointed. Lost. But I know you have
to sleep. I know you have to go out sometimes. How
could I get that angry?"

"You weren't just angry, you were... disgusted. Maybe
you thought I was... I don't know."

"Disgusted?" Angel looked thoughtful, then said
slowly, "Was there any sign that I thought I was back
in hell? Was there anything about the room to suggest
that Angelus had been there recently?"

"Well... Angelus had been there immediately before. I
don't know what sign he would have left except of sex.
I wouldn't have said you were in hell, though you
do... protest sometimes. Yes, actually, that is when
I've seen you angriest."

Angel nodded. "I thought I was in hell, and that the
books and the shirt were trophies from someone Angelus
had killed. I don't know how they did it, but I often
felt as if they'd let him out. As if we were separate
for some of the time. They told me he'd been free.
They told me what he'd done. And there seemed to be
evidence, I seemed to remember... I don't know if it
was real or another torture, but either way it...
disgusted me. I wouldn't have been able to stand...
looking at his trophies."

"Oh. So you weren't angry with me."

"I'm sure I wasn't."

A slight smile in Wesley's voice: "I'll get a
trashbag. We'll clear this away."

After Wesley had fetched the trashbag, he went to the
bedroom and changed his shirt, and he took the shirt
that he'd been wearing in to give to Angel. When
they'd cleared up and Wesley had set the bag and the
crumpled shirt outside the door, and Angel had pushed
the mattress back into place, Wesley said, "Do you
want to read something now? I'll get another copy of
'The Delta Star' when we're out training this evening,
but we could read something short right now."

"That was the brown book?"

"That's right. That's the book we've been reading for
the last week and a half. You've been quite insistent
sometimes about reading 'The Delta Star'. And not any
other book."

"A week and a half. Have we nearly finished it?"

"Um... We got about a quarter of the way through. And
then you had a vision and afterwards you couldn't
remember what we'd read. And since then we've been
re-reading the first chapter. You enjoy it, but you
never remember enough of it to get any further."

Angel stared at Wesley, looking bleak, then nodded his
head, a small nod. "I think I knew. Not that, but...
how little I have left. It's slipping away. I can feel
it slipping away. You -" Gunn saw Angel swallow. "I
won't know you for much longer. What will I be when I
don't know you?"

Wesley put his hand on Angel's arm. "I'll always be
here, Angel. Even if you don't know me."

A grunt, could have meant anything, then Angel said,
"You said you'd find something short. If we're going
to read."

"I've got some volumes of short stories." Wesley came
out and seemed to just take the first book he found.
"These are set in New York a hundred years ago. Is
that alright?"

"Was I there?"

"I think you were in Europe. I could check the dates."
Angel shook his head, and they sat down against the
wall.

"Don't leave the book in here." Said abruptly, while
Wesley was still getting ready.

"Oh? You don't want to be able to read on your own?"

"If I thought I was in hell again, I might tear it up.
I don't want to - I don't want to do that."

"OK. I'll keep it in the living-room."

The new book was much more Wesley's type of book than
the cop novel, very Masterpiece Theatre, nothing in it
that Wesley was embarrassed to read out loud - but
then Wesley liked the cop novel (except for the first
chapter), Wesley liked "Dumb and Dumber", so it was
more that the new book was closer to the ideas of
Wesley that Gunn had lived with for longest. Angel
found the book easier to follow and he stayed with it
for nearly twenty minutes. When Wesley finished, he
left the book on the floor at first, and then he
remembered what Angel had said and he went back to get
it.

Gunn had just got to sleep that night when he was
brought wide-awake by Angel shouting Wesley's name,
sounding desperate. Gunn helped Wesley into his robe,
then dragged some clothes on and followed a few
seconds later; though he knew he wouldn't be able to
do anything except watch and wait.

"Apartment 206. Thinks he's hunting it. Wesley! No
idea. Apartment 206. Thinks he can - In pieces. Not
like that!"

A vision. Angel was scrabbling for his pad now,
starting to draw. Wesley turned away from the screen,
face deathly pale, and went straight back to the
bedroom. He let the robe drop on the floor beside the
bed but Gunn picked it up, then turned the receiver
off.

"Wes? I'm going to get you a glass of your wine. 'less
it'd be wrong for now, make you feel sick?"

"I - Yes, I need something."

Gunn poured a small glass, but brought the bottle in.
Most of Angel's words were quite clear, even through
the two doors. Those neighbours had better be stone
deaf. They sat up against the pillows, with Gunn's arm
tight around Wesley's waist.

"OK. Not a message. We know he'd been thinking about
you. About... losing sight of you. So he's sleeping
and dreaming about it, and, yeah, this happens."

Wesley nodded. "I can't look at the drawings."

"Christ! Me neither. I'll throw the pad away, get him
a new one." After a pause, much quieter: "I think
it'll be easier, Wes, when he's forgotten. Should stop
him doin' this. You won't have to worry about making
him angry. Having him disappointed 'cos you're not
there."

Wesley took a long drink. "I don't want to be looking
forward to that. He's dying. In a way, he's dying. I
can't... I can't want him gone."

"No." So Gunn would try not to wish Angel gone, for
Wesley's sake.

* * * * *

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